Louise Edmonds is a leader in the men’s health and wellness space, providing personal styling from the inside out for men of all walks of life. She has had over 20 years’ experience in the media world working with companies in TV, Advertising, Music and Fashion, where her love of style emerged from her work in retail intelligence. This in turn placed her on the styling path with founding her website MenStylePower.com which for over 10 years has been providing content for men and writing for FashionBeans UK, Brands Exclusive, Sydney Morning Herald’s Executive Style, AskMen and CEO Magazine.
Louise is also a TV producer and is the creator of Deus Lux, with PRAY FAST HEAL, a prayer and fasting kit that brings health and wellness to individuals through aromatic excellence in candles and organic tea.
Louise Edmonds is a leader in the men’s health and wellness space, providing personal styling from the inside out for men of all walks of life. She has had over 20 years’ experience in the media world working with companies in TV, Advertising, Music and Fashion, where her love of style emerged from her work in retail intelligence. This in turn placed her on the styling path with founding her website MenStylePower.com which for over 10 years has been providing content for men and writing for FashionBeans UK, Brands Exclusive, Sydney Morning Herald’s Executive Style, AskMen and CEO Magazine.
Louise is also a TV producer and is the creator of Deus Lux, with PRAY FAST HEAL, a prayer and fasting kit that brings health and wellness to individuals through aromatic excellence in candles and organic tea.
Find inspiration as we talk to Louise Edmonds in our #StrongHealthyWomen interview.
Hi Louise! Thank you for being part of the Health and Fitness Travel, Strong, Healthy Women Interview Series, where we are shining a light on the importance of self-care, not as an indulgence but a necessity to reduce stress and general health issues.
Is there such a thing as a typical day for you and what does that look like?
To be honest not really. The typical element of my day is my daughter’s routine of primary school, but other than that, it is very different from day to day. I have two businesses, I’m a member of a number of advocacies supporting the health and well-being of children, I’m on the leadership team of another not-for-profit and I’m building a young men’s program for 2020, so put all of these together and you have a very diverse scope of works, thus my days dramatically change week to week.
Can you share a time when you felt your well-being was challenged in the past and what did you do to overcome it?
My well-being was challenged dramatically on two occasions in the past decade. Firstly, when I had my daughter at the age of 40 and another, pneumonia earlier this year. Delivering a baby in your 40’s sets you up as a high-risk pregnancy so healing from that amazing time in my life was a real struggle for me. Post-natal depression and health issues plagued me for the first 3 years after her birth. I completely left out self-care as I was managing this new precious life and my men’s styling business, and although doing it the best I can, I know many women tend to drop their own self-care because they become so time poor. When I had pneumonia, that was the last straw. My husband and I had it at the same time, so we quarantined our daughter to other rooms while we cared for each other. After 8 days we were able to do the most basic of things because we were so weak physically. This really placed a spotlight on continual health and wellbeing and I overcame it by creating an aromatics business, www.deuslux.com.au
It is proven that your sense of smell is the most powerful influence on memory, mood and emotion. With so many people suffering from depression and anxiety, I wanted to create a fragrance to ‘centre’ those who felt strained under the pressures of modern living. I do this through pure essential oil candles holding blends of healing oils found in ancient texts and I’ve partnered with Ovvio Organics to create a fasting and stress relief organic tea that promotes a sense of calm, wellbeing and healing to those on the journey to reset their life.
What does ‘being healthy’ mean to you and how do you keep this at the forefront when life gets unavoidably busy?
Being healthy to me incorporates mind, body and spirit. And you need time, knowledge and a higher source to do this. Nutrition is imperative. What we eat fuels and heals our bodies. As we think, so we are; so, we need to get our heads out of social media and into deep listening conversations about life and love and spirit; prayer and meditation will ground us and keep us humble and kind.
Every morning I awake at 6:15 am, I light a candle by Deus Lux, a beautiful aromatic pure essential oil candle collection and I sit on the balcony and listen, smell the freshness of the dawn and breathe. I’ll drink lots of water in the morning and settle my mind into the day. I stretch also to wake my body up. It’s nothing too dramatic but it is a perfect start to my busy day. I then pray, some people will meditation, but I’ll pray. I lift my heart and spirit to God and give thanks.
I’m on emails at 7:00 am, daughter is awake at 7:30 am and then I don’t seem to catch myself until 3:00 pm. More work until 6:00 pm, then mother and wife duties – dinner, discussions, downloading the day and sleep. I’m a good sleeper! Haha.
To sustain me through the day, I will strategically place wellness products around the house, car and office. When you’re busy your mind is tightly focused on business, sales, strategy, networking and so forth, so I place goodness around me when I have a thought it is there. I’ll have Aesop hand cream in my bag, or car. I’ll have Balance spring water with flower essences in three places and walnuts and cranberries on hand. I prepare everything to make sure I don’t fall off the wagon!
Have you ever taken a holiday specifically for your well-being? Can you share what the experience was like?
The only holiday I have ever taken for myself and by myself is going back to the Gold Coast to sit on my favourite beach and transport myself back to when I was a teenager and I would sit for hours, sometimes even in the rain, and remember how much joy that brought me. Sounds like I need to schedule in something!
Every woman’s idea of self-care is different, please tell us what does self-care mean to you?
Self-care is attempting every day to do something beautiful for yourself. And yes, every woman is different. Self-care might be as simple as a punnet of strawberries in the bath or taking the whole day off and driving to a remote part of our beautiful land and just looking at the landscape. Some women’s self-care is a spa retreat, or a beautiful meal.
Some women like myself, who are mothers and juggle being a wife, primary care taker, business leader and so forth – need to find self-care in the wee hours of the morning, or in the tiny breaks we have during the day. Or we schedule out 2 weeks out each year just for us.
As I’m time poor and need to be on the ground 24/7 for my business, I have come to love fasting for my mind, body and spirit. This sounds utterly ridiculous right but let me explain. I’m investing in my health, so I don’t pay for it later. When you fast, you are clearing out the house (body). It’s a spring clean and I do this because life, pollution, food and residue in the cells and body get stuck in there when we’re functioning at such a high pace. So, a 7-day liquid fast of organic tea, juices and bone broth has the following effect. It detoxes and cleanses the major organs, cleanses the blood, resets the body’s sugar cravings, decreased inflammation in the body, reduces cholesterol, heals the gut and brings the inside of you back to life. When this happens, you come alive again in a fast-paced world with ridiculous deadlines! You have this enormous amount of energy, you’ve slimmed down, you’ve reset yourself and the results are evident. So, any holiday that has gentle fasting as a major attraction, I’m in!
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