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New beauty brand seeks backers to launch line that blends routine and resilience 

New beauty brand seeks backers to launch line that blends routine and resilience 

Mimi Gilmour Buckley is well known in New Zealand’s hospitality industry as the face behind successful locations including Mexico and Burger Burger. 

A new venture from her would not be surprising in the slightest, but it’s the form her new business has taken that may be less expected. 

In partnership with fellow Aucklander Lucinda East Kennedy, Gilmour Buckley has created new skincare and lifestyle range IAMMI, a results-driven range of New Zealand-made skincare that blends the best of nature and science.

That concept may be familiar but it’s the further elements, or arms of the brand that bring something new to the beauty landscape, something Gilmour Buckley and East Kennedy hope will inspire supporters to assist in launching the brand via its Kickstarter campaign.

Should IAMMI get the funding it needs (and it is well on its way to its initial NZ$50,000 goal with over 2 weeks to go) the brand will launch later this year with an accompanying app and platform that the founders say will help teach resilience. 

How? By providing easy access to a variety of expert knowledge and teaching how to add simple resilience-building practices into the routine of washing your face. The app will also help track skin health and energy levels, and connect users with the IAMMI community. 

The idea was planted during Gilmour Buckley’s personal journey over recent years, navigating the realisation that resilience isn’t innate and can be taught, but isn’t talked about nearly enough. On consulting with experts and in discussion with East Kennedy, she knew she needed to extend the notion.

IAMMI founders Mimi Gilmour Buckley and Lucinda East Kennedy.

Five years ago Gilmour Buckley’s daughter Olympia (seen in the image at top) suffered a severe brain injury in utero. Once born, Olympia was diagnosed with quadriplegic spastic cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Doctors told Mimi and her family that Olympia would most likely never walk, talk, eat or potentially see. 

Mimi says she was devastated for her daughter and struggling to cope, and she knew that to feel better, she had to stop worrying about what the future held and what she could not control. 

In the quiet time she spent washing her face, she began to develop a daily process where she would remind herself to accept what she couldn’t change and focus only on what she could.

While studying how the brain works, both to understand Olympia’s condition and to see how she could help her development, Mimi says she began to understand why this small action was having a powerful effect, saying she had come to understand repetition creates new neural pathways and the more sensory inputs (like scent and texture) you include in the repeated action, the faster those pathways develop. 

Of course, helping others access this idea through using skincare would have far less appeal without great products, and Gilmour Buckley and East Kennedy have worked hard to ensure those are well in hand. Skincare therapists Christine Hames and Kate Michelmore led the products’ development, along with Mimi’s father, Dr. Robert Gilmour, a doctor specialising in skin and a former associate professor at Stanford University. They worked alongside a team of chemists at IAMMI’s local laboratory and manufacturer.

Together they were involved in the creation of the initial products that will include: 

  • Olympia Glow: Nourishing Serum with Kakadu Plum, Sea Buckthorn & Reishi Mushroom ($1 from every Olympia Glow sold will be given to The Starship Foundation, supporting Starship Children’s Hospital)
  • Hero Balm: Cleansing Butter Balm with Camellia Seed Oil, NZ Red Seaweed & Kawakawa
  • Reset Balm: Exfoliating Cleansing Balm with Mamaku, Palmarosa & Jojoba Beads
  • You Dew: Hydrating Gel Moisturiser with Peptides, Niacinamide & Mamaku
  • Give Me Clarity Serum: Pimple Potion with Niacinamide, Centella Asiatica & Salicylic Acid
  • Just Kissed: Tinted Olympia Glow with Multi-Molecular HA, Evening Primrose Oil & Mamaku
  • Sun Kissed: Tinted Olympia Glow with Multi-Molecular HA, Evening Primrose Oil & Mamaku

 For more on how to support the launch of IAMMI, the brand’s kickstarter page is live until Tuesday, Mar 15, 2022.

 

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