Glow Talk. Intimate Self-Care and Body Love with Christine Marie Mason
Show Snapshot:
Ready to treat yourself with more reverence and love? Meet Christine Marie Mason, the founder of Rosebud Woman, a line of luxury, plant-based intimate wellness products. A former software CEO and six-time tech founder, Christine is also a yogi, tantric, co-founder of a mediation center, and a student of plant medicine and intentional living.
We uncover the genesis of Rosebud Woman and how Christine identified a need for luxury vaginal and vulvar skincare formulations, why body love is an imperative, and what can get in the way of self-love. Bonus, we explore how designing a life of integrity is the ultimate form of self-care.
In This Episode We Cover:
1. What made Christine, a six-time tech founder, launch Rosebud Woman, a line of luxury intimate wellness products.
2. What’s body love and how do we create it for ourselves?
3. Beyond spa days – the shape of true self-care.
4. Self-love practices Christine incorporates into her daily life.
5. A surprising tool for connecting to your deepest needs.
6. Fixes for painful sex and intimate wellness– products that address loss of moisture, resiliency, and thinning tissues.
7. The upsides of entrepreneurship and running a family-owned business.
8. Why Christine embraces being a grandmother in an ageist world.
Quotable:
Self-care for me is about living in integrity. Is my yes, a yes? Is my no a no? Am I being honest? Am I living with people who are being honest? The ultimate self-care is designing a life that is coming from this integral place.
I recommend silence. Make a buffer zone where your ears can open, and inspiration can drop in. Stop doing, get quiet and start listening and let your magnificent body and the wisdom of the environment, tell you what you need.
Snackable Smarts:
During 20 years of leading businesses and companies, Christine ran a parallel track, working to reclaim her feminine self, learning yoga, massage, plant medicines. After selling her last company, she couldn’t get the idea of Rosebud Woman out of her head, so she integrated the two themes in her life – business and reverence for the feminine and nature.
Christine observed that the pelvic basin – the center of a woman's intimate life – was really separated from the rest of her body. It was shrouded in lack of information, misinformation, shame, sexual shame, period shame, and a general lack of understanding.
In order to reduce shame and help women love their bodies, Rosebud Woman focuses on filling in the gaps in education.
Daily love for your intimate self can be practiced by touching your body, massaging it every single day, and saying, “Thank you, feet. Thank you, shins. Thank you, knees.” Accepting and deeply looking at your unique configuration. Practices like dry brushing, caring for your skin, avoiding toxic loads, good nutrition, and talking to yourself with kindness can reinstate your own reverence and connection to your body.
We can appreciate and think a lot of different shapes and sizes are beautiful. Turn that same kind lens on yourself.
The media has women internalizing a “should” message early on. I “should” get my 45 minutes of cardio in. I “should” do this. I “should” look this way. I “should” wear things that squeeze my body into a smaller shape. When we are quiet, ignoring the “should” messaging, the body's own wisdom will reveal itself.
Self-care goes beyond spa days. Self-care is about living in integrity. Is my yes, a yes? Is my no a no? Am I being honest? Am I living with people who are being honest? The ultimate self-care is designing a life that is coming from this integral place.
Ask yourself, “What do I desire?” before you impose the desires and the needs of other people on yourself.
Self-care is also a shift in attitude about being worthy. Self-love is a political act. Because once you begin to say, “I am worthy -- a magnificent creature of the divine,” – you begin to say, "Hey, I believe that I deserve equal healthcare. And I believe that I should be protected from abusive systems.”
To better listen to your deepest needs, Christine recommends silence. Put a bubble around yourself where there are no inputs. Take 20 to 30 minutes every day. Make a buffer zone where your ears can open, and inspiration can drop in. Stop doing, get quiet and start listening and let your magnificent body and the wisdom of the environment tell you what you need.
To launch Rosebud Woman, Christine skipped the venture-backed financing that she used to launch her tech companies, and instead used her own capital to start the business. Having worked with VCs in the past, Christine knew they would not understand the new category of product she envisioned – beautiful, exquisite, high-quality ingredients for vaginal and vulvar care. Christine chose to trust her instincts that products that fostered adoration, reverence, and offered super high-quality ingredients were going to resonate with a certain sector of women.
An astonishing 60% of women have moisture issues in the vulva and the vaginal canal which is not often talked about because it’s embarrassing. But women who have lost a significant amount of estrogen, whether it's through aging or it's through cancer treatments, or through medications like for bipolar or circulation conditions, can experience painful sex and a lack of resilience in the tissue. Rosebud Woman’s flagship product the Honor Balm is a beautiful, intimate moisturizer that goes on like a thick balm and turns it into oil with heat and restores resilience.
Christine on aging: “There is so much ageism about older people, not just women, that I think is completely misplaced. I'm at the peak of my career, the peak of my thinking. I'm a matriarch. I have worked my ass off to raise my four kids, two step-kids from two and eight, as well as caring for countless other children that came through my life. To be a grandmother is this incredible joy and the idea that I would have to hide that-- to sort of preserve myself forever as a 37-year-old is just not true about the world.”
Christine on what motivates her: “I think it's really vital to really think about all of the different components of how we support this little bundle of nerves and blood that is our body? And to regulate our nervous system to come from a sweet and loving place. And to understand that the systems out there are really arrayed to not have you live from joy, but to live from obligation. And I feel that is the broader mission: to help people love their lives and enjoy their lives more.”
Word of Mouth. Christine’s Product Pick:
This intimate moisturizer feels great, improves skin density, and provides daily nourishment.
Anoint an all-over body oil is filled with naturally derived, organic ingredients that nourish all the skin on the body.
Show your body some love.
ACA listeners get 10% off with code CERTAIN10.
More Resources:
Vogue: Does your Y-Zone need its own skincare regime?
Christine’s books
The Invitation: Daily Love for Your Intimate Self
Body Love: A Companion Journal to The Invitation
The Nine Gifts. A First Aid Kit for Mind, Body, and Spirit.
Follow Christine:
Rosebud Woman website
Rosebud Woman Instagram
Rosebud Woman Facebook
Christine’s personal website
Transcript
Katie Fogarty (00:03):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women on life after 50, who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host, Katie Fogerty.
All February long, we are talking about love and self-care, here at A Certain Age. Today I'm joined by Christine, the founder of Rosebud Woman, which is a line of luxury plant-based wellness products that is committed to awakening self-love and reverence for the feminine in the world. Christine's official bio is as many-petaled as her company's namesake rose. She is a podcaster and author. Over the arc of her career, she's a six-time founder and former tech CEO, a futurist, a Yogi, and the co-founder of a meditation center and medicinal farm in Hawaii. A mother, stepmother, and grandmother, she's also pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy.
And while this is not on her official bio, she and Rosebud Woman are the creator of a divine body oil called Anoint, made with natural, nourishing ingredients like Jasmine, Sunflower, Apricot, West Indian lemongrass, and more. It's saving my skin during our bitter East Coast winter. Welcome, Christine.
Christine Marie Mason (01:09):
Thank you so much. I love that intro. A many-petaled rose.
Katie (01:14):
Literally. I mean, as I said, I absolutely love the Anoint body oil. I've been using it every day for months now, but when I went to learn more about you and your background, I was really struck by your diverse career span. And it made me think of that Walt Whitman quote about how one person can contain multitudes because you've had a career with, sort of, multiple channels. So, what made you launch Rosebud Woman?
Christine (01:40):
It's actually an integration above all the other stuff. So, you know, I started, I had children super young. I got married, super young. I had my first child at 18 and I had four by the time I was in my mid-twenties. And I had gone, also gone to business school. And I tried to become a corporate consultant at one of those big firms, and it was beautiful work, really impactful work. But I couldn't figure out how to dovetail that, with raising a family.
So, I started entrepreneuring, I guess, starting companies really young. And one of the companies I started, just happened to be timing with the first dotcom boom and the introduction of the Internet. And so the work that I was doing, unautomated I automated and started a company and that continued, you know, while I was raising them. There were a lot of mouths to feed. And I had developed this expertise in technology.
But at the same time, I had to go through this process, personally, of reclaiming my feminine self. Like; do learn yoga, learn massage, all kinds of plant medicines. And there was this 20-year parallel track of leading businesses, leading companies, learning how to be with the world, and be nature as a woman. And then when I sold my last company, I was going to retire, travel the world with my new lover, but I couldn't get this idea out of my mind. So, I merged these two themes and did this thing. So, I feel it's more like a culmination, integration than a sort of a departure.
Katie (03:09):
I love how you use the word integration too because it's the symbol of the rose. I mean, every aspect is sort of distinct and unique, every petal, but together, it makes it whole. And it's so interesting to hear a little bit more about your personal journey.
One of the things that really struck me also about Rosebud Woman when I spent time on the website is not just that you're offering beautiful and nourishing skincare and wellness formulations; but you really offer, again, it's that integration, you offer information and products that nurture other aspects of femininity, the feminine self. You have The Invitation: Daily Love for Your Intimate Self. You describe it as a book designed to elicit wonder, the miracle of the feminine body. Can you tell us a little bit more about why you decided to surround your wellness products with this type of information?
Christine (04:04):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you really honed in on it by choosing the word integration. What I felt, was that the pelvic basin, a woman's intimate life, was really separated from the rest of her body. Like it was shrouded in lack of information, misinformation, shame, sexual shame, period, shame, a lack of understanding by a young girl about what the life of an older woman's body is like. Just so much like a black hole basically in the body.
And so, to reinstate the pelvic basin and into its rightful place as part of a woman's entire body actually takes movement on a lot of different levels. In the mind; knowing the facts and the information about your body and in the psyche. Not just the mind, but all of the overlays on the mind that come from culture, like; who does your body belong to, what's your right relationship to pleasure? Et cetera, et cetera. I mean, that's all part of some of the materials.
So, in order to reduce shame and help women everywhere love their bodies, we had to really focus on integration and filling in the gaps in education. When we started, people didn't know the difference between the vulva and vagina. A lot of women still don't. And if you invite a group of girls to point to the parts of their anatomy, only 10% can correctly name even two parts in their whole pelvic region. So, I felt like we had to really immerse the products with information around body love. They couldn't just standbalone.
Katie (05:40):
Right. That's astonishing about the body parts, but I guess it makes sense because, you know, it is hard for a girl or a woman to see this part of her anatomy, even though it's so central to self and identity as a female and eventually, sex, and potentially motherhood.
So, what are some of the ideas that you share in the invitation? Because you talk about daily love for your intimate self. So, can you share with our listeners what some of the recommendations are from the book and maybe how you practice some of these ideas in your own life?
Christine (06:17):
The first part is around reinstating your own reverence and connection to your body. When I was first going to yoga teacher training, a couple of decades ago, I had this wonderful teacher, Shiva Rea. And she was one of the only leading female yoginis, in sort of, the western yoga [Inaudible 06:34][1] . And she taught us a practice called abhyanga or anointing yourself from head to toe where you would touch your whole body. And she said, “I touch my and pussy and my ass every day, and I love it.”
So, at the time I was like torturing myself into a size two, and four little kids, and trying to do triathlons. I mean, I was like, really trying to manipulate and dominate my body instead of loving it and letting it be emergent for what it was. So, I started with that practice of just touching my body and massaging it every single day and saying, thank you feet. Thank you shins. Thank you knees. That process over 30 or 40 days totally transformed my relationship to how I wanted to live inside of my own skin.
A good amount of the practices and the invitation have to do with that; accepting, deeply looking at your unique configuration in your skin. And then that includes things like dry brushing and helping care for the skin. There's a whole section on the toxic loads of our products, of our food, wanting people to really support and nourish. Like these are all part of self-love, helping them change the inner script of how you talk to yourself is part of it. Then of course, there's a whole bunch on touch and different forms of touch and how to touch your intimate parts and getting to know and appreciated naming them.
Those are all parts of that particular book. Then I did a little companion journal called Body Love; A Journal, and it is basically a little checkbox of: how did I love my body today, and you know, insert box, and then some room to describe what was the relationship with your body.
Katie (08:18):
I love that you use the expression, you know, how do you talk to yourself? Because one of my earlier guests in January, a woman by the name of Lisa McCarthy, kicked off Season Two and talked about how you talk to yourself, you know, in your brain. How the notion of being your own advocate and talking to yourself the way you would communicate to somebody you love like a child or a friend. And that oftentimes women don't do that. So, she talked a little bit about the idea of being an inner coach versus an inner critic.
But I'd like to hear the way you're talking about it. It's about being an inner coach around our physical body because sometimes women are sort of unkind to ourselves. We look and we compare ourselves to the women that we see in fashion magazines, there's a sort of, a cultural obsession with youth. And as we age, we can begin to start to feel, you know, maybe embarrassed about our body.
It sounds like you went through this yoga training and you had a wonderful yoga teacher who really helped you reframe how you look at your own body. But do you feel that aging has made you, you know, kinder in the way that you look at yourself? Has that evolved your appreciation for your body and what it can do?
Christine (09:39):
Yeah, it's that I've had two great lovers who like my big butt and that's really helped a lot. I totally, like, diminish that. It's not all self-talk. But what I noticed in myself is I appreciate and I think a lot of different shapes and sizes are beautiful. And so, why wouldn't I turn that same, kind lens on myself? But what we do, what I did, and I think it's somewhat widespread is we get and internalize a “should” message from the media early, and then we don't even need the media to reinforce it. It's already in our own heads. And there's a shared mentality that emerges from that like; I should get my 45 minutes of cardio in, I should do this, I should look this way, I should wear things that squeeze my body into a smaller shape. God help us all.
The big shift was going into the non-dominant side of the body, but the emergence and saying, “So, lovely body, what would you like today? What would feel good to you? What would you like to do? Do you wanna move your shoulder this way? Do you want to put on some fun music and dance? Do you want to be in nature?” And really get into an inquiry about what my body's own needs were, and let that lead. Instead of some dominant idea. And the quieter that I got inside, the more, the body's own wisdom would reveal itself.
So, that's been a huge shift. And like, I'm living in a community right now, where there are a lot of women in their twenties and thirties, and I'm trying to practice compersion, which is joy in their joy in their tiny little booty-shorts. And I'm really happy to see them. You know, I'm past the booty-short age, for me, but I do go and swim naked at the beach. So, you know, there's a whole level complex level of feelings there.
Katie (11:31):
Of course. And I think that's something that a lot of women have. I mean, you know, I have a 20-year-old daughter and she's gorgeous. She's 20, and her friends are beautiful and 20, and I can appreciate their beauty and still appreciate the beauty of the women in my circle. It's different, as you said, that the world is full of different shapes and sizes and ages, and, you know, we have to be compassionate to ourselves and not, I guess, what is it? Comparison is the thief of joy. You know, we have to find joy in what we have going on, I guess.
How has your concept of self-care, changed at all during the pandemic? Because I feel like we are still on a wave of, a kind of chaotic change in the way a lot of us live our lives and manage our days. And it's been a year that's very dislocating. Have you found, like, in the past, I might've thought of self-care as being something indulgent, you know, like a spa day or a massage? But for me now, self-care is not watching the news and going to bed early, you know. Has your definition of self-care changed?
Christine (12:40):
Yeah. We're going to go back to the word integration. Like the self-care for me is about living in integrity now. What I mean is my yes a yes. Is my no a no? Am I being honest? Am I living with people who are being honest? The ultimate self-care is designing a life that is coming from this integral place. And when you're very busy and you have a lot of places to go, and a lot of people to please, the denial of self-care is the denial of what your actual needs and desires are. So, I feel like self-care begins with that. What do I actually need? And what do I desire before I impose on myself, the needs of other people? That can, of course, be the embodiment, feeding yourself, good food, making your morning juice, you know, taking your walk. Whatever it happens to be.
But for the most part, it's a shift in an attitude about being worthy of care. And it's a political act, self-love is a political act. Because once I begin to say that I am a magnificent creature of the divine, I am totally here and worthy just as I am. And "Hey, I believe that I deserve equal healthcare. And I believe that I should be protected from abusive systems". Self-love begins an out-rippling of care for the feminine. And so, I feel like that deep self-love isn't, as you're saying, just about a spa day or something, it's about coming into the recognition that you are completely worthy and acting out of that.
Katie (14:10):
That is so beautiful. And I feel like that's something that I hear as a theme when I have these conversations with the guests on my show. The women I'm talking to for the most part are over 50. They're mid-fifties, they're in their sixties. And there is the sense that they are finally deeply connected to what it is that they need in their lives. And how they're moving about their daily life.
So, if we had a listener right now who is feeling like they need a little bit of encouragement, that they want to kind of harness some of this energy and more closely pay attention to their own needs. I think it's about being a good listener. What would you recommend to people who need encouragement to be a better listener of their own needs?
Christine (14:57):
I would recommend silence.
Katie (15:00):
Interesting.
Christine (15:03):
And then there's a long silence.
Katie (15:04):
And then there's a long silence! I love it.
Christine (15:09):
I would recommend silence. In order to put a bubble around yourself, a space for listening, you have to have some called-out space where there's no inputs. Just a little bit every day, 20-minutes, 30-minutes. People call it meditation. It's not, for me, like I'm trying to ascend, to not have thoughts. I'm trying to get enough space away from other people's needs and the noise of the world. Definitely not social media news, et cetera, and make a buffer zone where my ears can open and inspiration can drop in. And that might be the hardest thing to ask for. Stop doing, get quiet and start listening and let your magnificent body and the wisdom of the environment, tell you what you need.
I feel like that's made a difference in my life.
Katie: (16:00):
That's so beautiful. And I feel like that's something that we can incorporate into our days, even if COVID has changed how we're living. You know, we may not be able to easily go to a yoga class the way we used to, or we may not be able to hop a plane and sort of have an experience away from our lives, but we can find the opportunity to sit quietly for 20-minutes and pay attention to our own needs. You know, I think this is really hard as a mom. I have three kids, my husband, we're all at home, we're all sheltering-in-place, together. It has been difficult to carve out a time to have that silence.
One of the things that I noticed when I was on the Rosebud Woman website is that you have a family-run business, which I think is so interesting. How do you carve out space for yourself? How do you keep your personal and your professional life separate, or is this idea of this integration practiced in your business?
Christine (17:04):
I'll say first, I'll speak to you where I make space. I have a pretty rigid morning routine. And it's no, I don't do media before I do my morning gratitudes. Then I do my morning sit and I get up earlier than everyone else, except my partner currently does it with me. So, that's a blessing and we'll do some reading. We'll read a poem, we'll share a chant, we'll do something like that. And then we'll just sit in silence for 20 or 30 minutes and listen to the birds or whatever. And then I do my media and I begin my day.
When the kids were little, when they were at home, I did the same thing in a different way. I did my routines before they woke up. And it does take a little bit of you having to be a morning person. You could also do it at night, but I would say it just sets the tone for everything else in your life in such a beautiful way.
Now, the kids. So, the other businesses I did, Katie, were venture-funded, and I had to go and pitch male-dominated venture teams to get financing to start that. If I had to go, four years ago, and pitch a male-dominated team to do pussy-ceuticals, there is no way that I would have gotten funded. It was not even a category. So, the difference in this business and how it relates to doing it with my kids, is I used my own capital to start this business. And I decided I was going to make it beautiful, exquisite, high ingredients, and just trust my instincts that this sort of adoration, reverence, super high-quality ingredients were going to resonate with a certain sector of women.
I did all the research on what people's needs were and formulated the first products from that. And in the first year, I sold $18,000 worth of product, and it was nothing. And the second year, it was like $700,000. And the third year, it was a million-eight. And I didn't really have the capital to go and hire a snazzy CMO. And I just ended up finding out that my family had all of the skills necessary. My daughter's a Parsons professor of design and she's got an amazing photographic and design-eye. My son was running operations and finance and knew a ton about e-commerce. And by the time we pieced it all together, what took it from this nothing to a couple of million dollars in two years was the combination of love and trust. And we only have a team of five.
It's been an astonishing journey. And the speed, like, what we're doing as a group, the five of us are doing an old book, Stephen Covey’s, The Speed of Trust and how, when you have trust on your team, how fast things move, how little there is left on the table, how there's no backroom gossip and why that's so vital. That's what you get in a healthy family business. And so two of the five of us, two of the five employees are family.
Katie (20:03):
I love hearing that story. And I cannot wait to link in the show notes to your Instagram, to your website, because your packaging is beautiful. Your social media is so uplifting. It's educational and it's stunning. It's really, everything is gorgeous. The colors.
Tell me a little bit more about the actual products you sell. Because I would love for our listeners to know what is Rosebud Woman. What are, what are the products that you offer and why should they be intrigued about including them in their own days?
Christine (20:38):
Well, thanks for the opportunity to talk about the products because, you know, when I first started it, I think that there was a lot of confusion among people about why women would need special care for this part of their body. Well, the reason you don't know that 60% of women have moisture issues in the vulva and the vaginal canal is because it's embarrassing and people don't talk about it. But the facts are that women who have lost a significant amount of estrogen, whether it's through aging or it's through cancer treatments, or it's through certain kinds of medications like bipolar medications or any kind of thing for circulation. That there are physiological responses that dry out the vulva and make sex painful and basically create a lack of resilience in the tissue.
So, the first thing that we wanted to do was make a beautiful, intimate moisturizer, that felt like it goes on like a thick balm and turns it into oil with heat. It's got ingredients that are specifically designed to replenish the tissues and make them more bouncy and help them retain moisture long-term. So, it's both topical and it does some good stuff on the actual skin.
The other thing that a lot of people don't know, is the tissue right past the line where the hair ends, just like on your lips, there's a line where there's external texture, and then you go on the inside of the lip and there's more of a glossy texture. That's the same in the vaginal lips and the labia. And that on the inside of that line, the skin isn't keratinized, and it's 10-times more absorbent than any other skin on the body.
Katie (22:17):
Wow.
Christine (22:18):
So with this information, it goes directly into the bloodstream. So we really want to be careful. I mean, I'm a detox person anyway, with very high standards for the inputs in general, what I put in my body. But you know, you really want to be clean here. So, I don't want any like silicone-based lubes. I don't want any of that stuff in this part of the body.
So, the first product was this beautiful moisturizer and I put it in a wide mouth jar because of my grandmother's silver boudoir thing. You know, they used to have those silver trays with the mirrors and the wide-mouth powder puffs. And Pond’s Cold Cream jars. And I wanted to be evocative of that. That you could leave it on your night table and it would look beautiful. It wouldn't look transactional, or only for sex. Because I really want women to say my intimate health isn't about sexuality and about having sex. Although this stuff feels great when you're having sex, it's about feeling good in my own body and doing this every night.
I say in the book to take a little scoop, put it on your hip points, massage into the groin, get some blood flow, outer labia, inner labia, and leave it on overnight. And just do that every night, five minutes. And it's really a lovely practice.
So, that's my flagship product, the most popular product. And then I have a soothing cream that's calendula, arnica, comfrey, all kinds of things to reduce redness, itching, swelling. That's great for razor burns, is great for after sex. It's great all over the body. Actually, just put it out in a full-body size. An arousal serum, which brings blood flow and tingling to that area, kind of gets it all excited and the blood flow comes in and that does some more magic that's off of the Hawaiian plant.
Spilanthes acmella, something that's grown in Polynesia, because it's called buzz buttons.
Katie (24:05):
Oh, I love that. Buzz buttons.
Christine (24:07):
I mean, the first time I was in formulation and I was trying to pull formulas from Ayurveda, from Indian medicine, from Chinese medicine, from Shaman in South America, from White Witch wisdom from North America and basically get all the herbs that have been known to support central sexual and reproductive health into these products.
So, I'm at home and this guy on the street says here, "Have you tried this?" And it gives me a little tiny flower and said, "Bite the head." So, you bite the head off and your whole mouth starts to foam and foam and your lips puff up. And he says that's Spilanthes, it's in Polynesian culture used for dental care. It's an oral hygiene product because it foams and cleans the gums and brings blood flow into the mouth. And it's used for sexual arousal in women. And I was like, "You are kidding." And you know, that's how that ended up in this oil. So, we did some tests on that and it's pretty powerful anyway, more stuff like that, intimate care, and then body care.
Katie (25:13):
It's lovely. And I've only used the Anoint. So I need to obviously widen my purchasing on your website, but the Anoint is fabulous. It's so soothing and it smells good, but it's not overly scented, you know, smells delicate. And it's lovely. So, I can't recommend that enough. Are you, are you moving into products for men as well? Are you strictly female-focused?
Christine (25:38):
Well, just on the scent, the scents are from actives, I don't add any scent. They're just from the active ingredients. I have one product for men. It's called Manpower and we just have introduced a couple of supplement products that are sort of natural testosterone and estrogen support. And that's the one that aimed at men. It's beautiful, like pine pollen, and beet and things that have great studies against them. And men do steal the Soothe cream constantly, which is one of the reasons that I've made it in the larger tube.
But no, we're focused on women. I mean what's a woman, what's a man? When I first started, people were like, I have a vagina, but I'm a man. And I was like, "Oh, okay." So, I have learned how to be more cognizant of the breadth of people who are in the middle of the gender continuum. Not necessarily even transgender, but like combination gender. And really just say, if you have this, if you have these needs, these products support them and speak to it in that way. They're inclusive.
Katie (26:45):
You take such an interesting approach to sharing your products. We touched on it earlier, but you have a podcast, The Rose Woman. Your website shares really amazing essays that I would encourage all listeners to go check out. You cover topics, really a wide-range— about why you should stop doom-scrolling on social media, how to live with joy. You talk about male menopause, caring for yourself during a divorce. You really surround your customers with so much love and support. Is this something that you did deliberately, or is this something that grew out of your customers' needs?
Christine (27:24):
You should be a fly on the wall. In my marketing team meetings, they can't handle it. They're like, "What are you talking about?" I said, you know, the mission of the company is more joy, less suffering. Period. Like, what if you really believed that your whole life was here to just be enjoyed? That's it? You don't have to do anything. You don't have to be good. You don't have to be successful. You just have to enjoy it and then do what comes out of joy. You asked the self-love question before, that's the most loving thing you can do. And then from there, there are all these systemic structures. And so you might have guessed by now that my brain goes in a lot of directions. And so the team is like, "Just talk about sexuality and women's anatomy." And I'm like, "No, please don't put me in a box."
So, I think it's really vital to really think about all of the different components of how do we support this little bundle of nerves and blood that is our body and regulates our nervous system and to come from a sweet and loving place. And to understand that the systems out there are really arrayed to not have you live from joy, but to live from obligation. And I feel that is the broader mission: to help people love their lives and enjoy their lives more. And that's probably my life mission, not just this company,
Katie (28:51):
What a great mission, more joy, less suffering. I'm personally, I'm here for it, Christine, I think we're all here for that. But I did want to ask you something that caught my eye.
Again, when I was on your website and looking at your bio, it shares the usual CEO, bio information. Like that, you're a six-time founder, but then it goes on to say that you're a mother and that you're a grandmother. And that caught my eye because this show is all about aging out loud, aging unapologetically. But in my day job, I work as a career coach. I help clients share their professional story, primarily on LinkedIn, but again on bios. People are very leery about sharing their age. And you do not see people lean into being a grandmother. You do not see people leaning into being a grandfather. What made you include that information on your bio? Why is it important for you to age out loud in that way?
Christine (29:52):
That was such a conscious decision. You know, if I was applying for a job with someone else, there is so much ageism about older people, not just women, that I think is completely misplaced. There's a wonderful blog, it’s “AdAged." It's a man who talks about getting kicked out of the ad industry and what he thought was the peak of his career.
Well, for me, I'm at the peak of my career, the peak of my thinking. I'm a matriarch. I worked my ass off to raise my four kids, two step-kids from two and eight, as well as caring for countless others, children that came through my life. To be a grandmother is this incredible joy and the idea that I would have to hide that, to sort of, preserve myself forever as a 37-year-old, just the right balance of maturity and tech-savvy, kind of positioning, is just not true about the world.
And if I can stand out and say, “Here, this is me. I have all of this experience, all of this excitement." I'm now at the point in my life where my children are adulting and that means I'm free. I'm in what I call the "free period." I don't have actual periods, I actually have more time free than I've ever had, and I have all of this energy and capacity, and I want that to be honored. I didn't get all those stretch marks and scarring and late nights and kids crashing cars into trees and college acceptances, you know, I didn't do all that stuff to hide it. It was an amazing journey.
Katie (31:34):
Absolutely. Oh my gosh. I so love that. And by the way, the notion of how you've traded periods for free periods. I think that every woman on this show who is perimenopause or at menopause can relate to that. Because you've moved into a phase of your life where you're able to have more capacity, more integrity, more intellect, more time.
So when we started the show, I said, “Thank you, Christine, for your time today because it's our most valuable resource.” And I'm so thrilled that you found time in your day to be with us and our guests. We're nearing the end of our time together, but I did want to ask you before we wrap up, if there is a particular Rosebud Woman product or resource that you love, and that's part of your daily practice, that our listeners should know about? Or if there's any other resource that you want to share?
Christine (32:30):
Yeah, I am tied between the Anoint oil, as you said. I think I've gone through three bottles since December and the Honor balm. Those are our two flagship products. One's all body and one's intimate care. Although I do use the honor balm on my eyes, whatever that is.
Katie (32:45):
Oooh. I'm going to, I could use that.
Christine (32:47):
Please try our products.
Katie (32:49):
Your products are amazing. I'm adding the Honor balm.
Christine (32:51):
I think we have a discount code for your listeners. Also, if they want to try it, that would be wonderful. I'd be so happy. You're going to love them. The thing is, I’d like to give everybody in the universe a sample because they would all come back.
Katie (33:02):
By the way. Thank you so much for being so generous to offer discount code to the listeners, because I'm gonna encourage them all to head to your website. It's absolutely stunning. Follow you on social media. Can you, can you let our listeners know where they should find you?
Christine (33:14):
If you're interested in women's intimate care and loving your body more, go to Rosewoman.com. And if you're interested in broader ideas on enjoying your life, the amazing gifts that we have right around us to shift our state without any medication, then go to xtinem.com for broader philosophy and engagement.
Katie (33:38):
Christine. Thank you so much. It was such a treat having you here today.
Christine (33:41):
I'm so glad you're being a voice for women over 50. It really is the best time of my life, and I wish I could have told 30-year-old self that. Do not fear. It's the best time of your life.
Katie (33:53):
What a fabulous note to end on. I could not agree more. Christine, thank you so much.
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women over 50, who are aging without apology. All month long, we're exploring love from every angle. Join me next week when I talk Galentine's and the enduring power of female friendships with the author of Girl Talk. Special thanks to Michael Mancini Productions, who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time. And until then: age boldly, beauties.