INBLUEM Podcast

Welcome to Episode 3 of the INBLUEM podcast, hosted by founder Montana Lower, where we go beyond skincare and explore the people, rituals and culture that shape how we see beauty.This November, INBLUEM turns six. To celebrate, I pulled my business partner, best friend and brother, Cooper, out from behind the camera and into the chair beside me to reflect on the wild ride that has been the last six years. I started INBLUEM very fresh post-partum with a baby on breast. Not long after, Cooper arrived at my door and we’ve been inseparable ever since. In this episode we look back on the last six years: the beginning, the chaos, the growth, and what it’s really like to build a business with family. It’s honest, a bit nostalgic, and full of the kind of things that don’t make it into our ‘business as usual’ marketing.For those who’ve been with us since day one, or those just stepping into the world we’re building - light up an incense and take a seat. This one’s for the dreamer about to start something of their own, the seasoned entrepreneur who knows exactly how wild this ride can be, and for our beautiful community, who have always wanted to know more behind the scenes of INBLUEM and what makes it work so damn good.From launching in the middle of COVID to why there’s no escape button when you work with family, we get honest about what it really took to grow INBLUEM to where it is today. We talk about how having a baby gave me a career, the brothers who taught me about ‘good men’, growing up in a small rural town and what it means to build a life on our own terms.Starting with 50 bottles and a ‘Dm to Order’ to 50,000 Bottles later and truly Rewilding the Beauty Industry. Happy Birthday to INBLUEM - and thank you to this incredible community who have made this possible. LINKS:Follow INBLUEMShop INBLUEM RitualsWe deeply honour and respect the traditional custodians of this land in which we are so grateful to live, breathe and share, Bundjalung Land, Byron Bay.Produced by Edge Within Productions: https://edgewithinproductions.comTIMESTAMPS:0:00 Welcome, and Why Cooper Is Here1:30 INBLUEM Turns Six: Starting With a Baby on My Breast4:22 Working With Family: No Escape Button6:32 Having a Baby Gave Me a Career8:59 Launching a Business in the Middle of COVID13:00 Why Every Decision Has Been Easy Between Us16:11The Brothers Who Taught Me I Love Good Men18:22 Choosing a Life on Our Own Terms22:23 The Longest Relationship I’ve Ever Had26:03 Before INBLUEM: Murals for Change29:37 Profit for Purpose, and Why It Starts With Self34:41 Rewilding Beauty: Finger Lime and Kakadu Plum38:29 “Why Not 100%?” The Question That Changed Everything40:54 Chocolate Covered Broccoli45:33 50,000 Bottles and a Community of Shareholders49:38 Accessible, Sustainable, and Why Our Serum Price Is Changing58:41 New Products and Our Subscription Model1:07:11 Masculine and Feminine in Business1:17:42 Hyper Individualism Is Modern Colonialism1:18:38 Our Biggest Fears1:24:10 What’s Next for INBLUEM1:33:43 Rapid Fire Questions1:35:35 Can’t Believe We Survived

Welcome to Episode 2 of the INBLUEM podcast, hosted by founder Montana Lower, where we go beyond skincare and explore the people, rituals and culture that shape how we see beauty.In this conversation, we sit down with Anna Maria and Demi Lee from Eclectica Hub, a collaboration we've been dreaming about for years. We've just finished holding Body as Altar, a four-day workshop exploring self-love, aging, ritual and the reclamation of the female body. This episode is raw, intimate and born fresh from that container.From the normalisation of freezing faces to the forgotten art of rites of passage, we explore unfiltered wisdom on what happens when we reject our bodies, why eldership is the antidote to shame, and how pregnancy became the most profound initiation into aliveness. We cover the collective psychosis around aging, the mirror work that heals distortion, and why true magnetism has nothing to do with wrinkles (or lack thereof).We dive deep into ritual versus routine, the age rainbow practice that changed how we see our bodies across a lifetime, what good skin really means, how to hold your daughter's rage without fixing her, and the womb as a stargate to infinite creative potential. We explore menarche, birth, menopause, and rewriting initiations as sacred passageways.This episode is medicine for anyone grieving the collective feminine psyche, anyone afraid of aging, anyone who's felt shame in their body, anyone raising daughters, and anyone ready to stop chasing youth and start ripening into eldership and legacy.LINKSFollow Eclectica Hub: https://www.instagram.com/eclectica.hubFollow INBLUEM: https://www.instagram.com/inbluem_auShop INBLUEM Rituals: https://www.inbluem.comWe deeply honour and respect the traditional custodians of this land in which we are so grateful to live, breathe and share, Bundjalung Land, Byron Bay.Produced by Edge Within Productions: https://edgewithinproductions.comTIMESTAMPS0:00 Welcome to Episode 20:49 What is Eclectica Hub2:02 The Pillar of Self-Love in INBLUEM4:35 Aging as Ripening and Eldership8:01 True Self-Love Has Gravity10:03 Ritual Versus Routine13:17 The Products as a Vehicle for Intention16:10 The Collective Psychosis of Freezing Your Face18:19 Speaking to Distortion and Frustration20:01 Elder Women and the Male Gaze23:02 Cultural Beauty Ideals Across the World25:30 The Mirror Practice at the Workshop27:06 Shame Dies in Safe Spaces28:41 Morning Dance Practice and Primal Nature29:56 The Age Rainbow: Silent Practice35:41 No Pinnacle Age, Constant Evolution38:50 The Question of What is Good Skin41:15 The Leaf Metaphor and Aging42:48 Reclaiming the Body Through Motherhood44:35 The Twig and Feminine Form45:42 Beauty Standards and Breastfeeding48:00 Body as Vessel and Impermanence49:14 Pregnancy as Unavoidable Initiation50:54 Dissociation and Coming Home to the Body52:44 The Womb and Feminine Initiation54:00 Menarche and Missing Rites of Passage55:48 Motherhood as Unmarked Threshold58:00 The Intelligence of the Body and Birth59:28 The Womb as Portal to Infinite1:00:38 Motherhood Dissolves Individualism1:02:02 Business Created With the Collective in Mind1:03:05 Taking a Breath Together1:03:16 Anna Maria's Memoir Release1:08:40 Meeting People on the Other Side1:10:20 Parenting Anger and Presence1:12:27 Rapid Questions1:14:31 What is Sustainability1:15:00 Finger Lime Serum Deep Dive1:17:03 Closing Gratitude and Movement into Revolution.

Welcome to Episode 1 of the INBLUEM podcast hosted by founder, Montana Lower. Where we go beyond skincare and explore the people, rituals and culture that shape how we see beauty.In this conversation, we sit down with INBLUEM's charity partner, Ella Bancroft, founder of The Returning – a female-founded, Indigenous-led organisation committed to restoring people into right relationship with Country.From growing up on Country and being placed in special ed, to building a charity on her ancestral Bundjalung lands, Ella shares her unfiltered wisdom on disconnection, the living landscape, true leadership and why the matriarchy has nothing to do with women dominating men.In this episode, we explore the reality behind the bush foods and native plants industry, animism, sovereignty, community care and what it really means to belong to the land. We dive deep into what colonisation did to our relationship with land and each other, why the most disconnected people hold the most power, why some wild plants like the Kakadu Plum refuses to be cultivated, how to vet greenwashing and spend with integrity, and what collaboration looks like when women truly lead.This episode is medicine for anyone craving a more honest, more connected and more responsible way of being in the world.INBLUEM has been a proud partner with The Returning since 2019, donating over $80,000 to meaningful causes that contribute to collective remembering and healing. INBLUEM is a profit-for-purpose business model created as a vessel to help heal the earth. Donations are built into every purchase.We deeply honour and respect the traditional custodians of Bundjalung Land, Byron Bay.FIND US:The Returning: https://www.thereturning.com.au/INBLUEM: https://www.instagram.com/inbluem_auShop: https://www.inbluem.comCHAPTERS:0:00 Welcome and Ella's World1:36 Why The Returning Was Born3:02 Life Before and After The Gathering4:43 Programs, Nursery and the Full Vision7:26 Native Plants, INBLUEM and the Uncomfortable Conversation9:23 Indigenous Land Access and the Bush Food Industry11:55 The Colonial Fracture and the Living Landscape12:56 Animism, What It Means to Walk in a Living World13:39 Disconnection Is a Status Symbol14:33 Country Talks Back15:30 We All Have an Animist Ancestor17:20 Real Connection Doesn't Need an Audience20:21 The Kakadu Plum Refuses to Be Controlled23:16 Taking a Plant From Its Community27:57 Kids, Country and What Education Is Missing28:47 Dyslexia, Special Ed and Growing Up on Country31:54 Ella's Definition of Success32:41 How to Deepen Connection to Land and Each Other36:48 What a Matriarchy Actually Means40:26 Conscious Consuming and Boycotting Extraction43:56 Why Every Business Owner Should Understand This45:35 A True Leader Shares Power46:22 Allyship Through Real Relationship48:16 Our Algorithms Are Making Us Intolerant49:27 Rapid Fire Questions50:52 Closing and Climate Positive Month52:12 What Collaboration Looks Like When Women Lead