How This Melbourne-Based Brand Is Championing A New Way Of Thinking About Wellness

“From what I saw, I didn’t feel as though self-care and wellness were for me.”

Like many young twenty-something’s, Rachael Akhidenor was eager to explore the world of wellness to combat the stresses of entering the often daunting working world. It didn’t take long, though, for her to realise that as a person of colour, she was largely excluded from the conversations taking place in the industry. Fuelled by a desire to open up the dialogue, she founded Self Care, a Melbourne-based label aimed at disrupting the country’s wellness and self-care industry by promoting and educating for those who are marginalised from the “traditional” image. 

“I felt it was completely whitewashed,” Akhidenor tells marie claire. “Almost all the brands in the space depicted themselves as being reserved for the white, thin, female and privileged. Couple this with the fact that I was, more often than not, the only BIPOC in a yoga class or mediation studio, I decided to focus my efforts on bringing greater representation and diversity to the wellness industry.” 

It was not simply the lack of diversity faced by people of colour that the brand is bringing light, but men and members of the LGBTQI+ community who are also being left aside, which many admit to finding the narrative “unrelatable and unapproachable.” 

“It broke my heart to think that other POCs, men, members of the LGBTQIA+ community and other marginalised groups did not feel welcome in the space,” Akhidenore says. “Especially when the consequences are so grave, I knew this exclusionary image of wellness had to change. Unfortunately, this is reflected in the mental health statistics also. It’s no wonder the majority of people who participate in the industry are this singular look. It’s because they’ve been told, ‘you belong here’.” 

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