Mindful skincare
She’s the local entrepreneur best known for founding the popular Mexico and Burger Burger chains but now Mimi Gilmour Buckley can add another ambitious string to her bow: natural skincare range and mental health platform Iammi, which celebrated its official launch this week. The new range and its complementary wellbeing app have been developed with her business partner, PR specialist Lucinda East Kennedy, skin specialist Christine Hames and tech and product design expert Sydney Crocker. The launch products include nourishing oil-based serums, cleansing and exfoliating balms, and colourful organic facecloths.
But as Viva reported in February last year, the intention behind Iammi goes deeper than just delivering glowing skin. Inspired by Mimi’s daughter Olympia, who was born 6 years ago with quadriplegic spastic cerebral palsy and epilepsy, Iammi is also a free resilience-building, stress-busting app designed to “flip the daily skincare routine into a five-minute wellbeing practice”. During those challenging first few weeks following Olympia’s birth, it was during the simple act of washing her face that Mimi made it a habit to focus only on what she could control, and let go of what she couldn’t. The Iammi app she went on to create provides tools to guide users through a similar cognitive behaviour therapy-inspired practice, and to track and improve the health of their skin.
“It can be really challenging to find the time for wellbeing,” Mimi explains. “Iammi takes time you already have and a routine you already do and creates a powerful daily habit. Skincare is a natural place to start because of the deep connection between the skin and mind. Plus, it was during my skincare routine that I first realised how small, repeated daily habits can positively impact mental health.”
The unique venture is three-and-a-half years in the making, with support from a community-funded Kickstart campaign. $1 from every Olympia Glow serum sold will go to the Starship Foundation. Discover the new Iammi range at Iammi.co. Download the Iammi app from the App Store.