This Galentine’s Day, ditch the doom and gloom with Freshly Unbothered, the hilariously irreverent brand blending dark humor, shiny trinkets, and a dash of satire. Founded by Michelle, a former corporate exec turned creative renegade, Freshly Unbothered offers cheeky bracelets with a cause—perfect for gifting your besties (or yourself) a laugh and some cathartic relief. We sat down with Michelle to chat about the inspiration behind the brand, her journey from burnout to brilliance, and why everyone needs a little “F the Patriarchy” in their jewelry box. —Vita Daily
What inspired you to create Freshly Unbothered, and how did your career burnout shape the brand’s mission and identity?
I always say Freshly Unbothered started as a joke that somehow spiraled wildly out of control, and now here we are. My therapist would probably tell you I was masking a poorly hidden desire to regain back control in my life after leaving my VP role in the food industry, but I prefer to frame it as a project for creative expression. My background is in brand and product development, so when I was ready to reengage, the process of creating something totally unhinged with no restrictions whatsoever was a form of recovery for me. As our ‘Chronicles of Disorder’ bracelet states: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. What doesn’t make you stronger builds character. What doesn’t build character gives you an anxiety disorder and a morbid sense of humour. If that doesn’t surmise the experience of corporate burn out, I don’t know what does.
Your products are filled with dark humor and satire—why do you think humor is such a powerful tool for addressing heavy topics like workplace trauma or existential dread?
What’s that old saying? If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry?! There’s absolutely a time and place for both of those emotions, but the world is filled with enough things that make us cry, so creating an opportunity to have a laugh felt like a better contribution to humanity. There’s something deeply connective about a shared moment of absurdity between people, and cathartic irreverence can be a great way to lighten the mood when you’re faced with unsolvable questions like why do you always lose one sock in the dryer, and how will we manage the proliferation of AI now that we’ve let the robots out of their boxes?
Can you tell us more about the creative process behind designing your magical satire crystals and bracelets? How do you come up with their unique names and backstories?
The Whatsapp girlfriend group chat is an endless, rich (and depressing?!) source of inspiration. I know I’m not the only one asking “Why do I feel so terrible? Is it the weather? Is it the crushing effects of trying to survive in a late-stage capitalist society? Am I getting my period?” Standard response after much discussion, is “Have you tried applying a magical crystal bracelet to that problem?”. The test for creating something new is pretty straightforward – has someone had an emotional response to something? Literally anything? Great – what can we do with that energy that might translate into something meaningful or humourous? Some days the ideas flow and I’m able to write and write. Others it’s like being stuck in rush hour traffic – a slow and painful trudge towards the destination.
How has your background as a former corporate exec influenced your approach to building and running Freshly Unbothered?
Working long hours and being consumed by an endless to-do list is probably the best warm up to running a small business you can get. That, and managing a marketing department where budgets are constantly getting axed and you’re always being asked to do more, with less. I don’t think publicly traded companies were around when Sisyphus was pushing his rock up the hill, but the modern-day equivalent has to be a calendar filled with back-to-back Teams meetings with no clearly defined purpose or agenda. Just as you think you’ve reached the top of the hill, the giant boulder comes crashing back down on Sunday night when you realize you have to get up and go to work in the morning and do it all over again. Let’s just say that if your experience can’t be a model of good practice, it can be equally useful as a dire warning.
Giving back is a key part of your brand ethos. Can you share more about the charitable causes you support and how your customers contribute through their purchases?
We’re just in the process of wrapping up our 2024 books, but as it was only a partial year due to launching in May, you’ll to have to be gentle with us on the results! (Actually, that’s a lie – the more bracelets you buy, the more we can donate, so you have to share that responsibility but whatever.) Once our smart accountant has put all the numbers in the right squares on the excel sheet, we’re donating partial proceeds from every bracelet to the Canadian Cancer Society as part of our ‘Dampen the Dumpster Fire’ initiative. We too, are exhausted by the endless black hole of bad news, so we decided from day one we wanted to do something that made us smile more, and cry less in the shower. I’ve lost family members to that shit-fuck disease (are we allowed to say that?) and my best friend has endured her own multi-layered journey with cancer, so the initiative means a lot. Look for our ‘We Didn’t Just Watch the World Burn: 2025 Report’ coming in the spring where we try and document what we did, what we can do better, and our final donation tally.
Freshly Unbothered has a strong voice and brand identity. How do you balance humor with authenticity in your messaging and product descriptions?
FU is where we get to play with the paradox of serious topics expressed in a playful way. The tension between those things can be used to create cathartic release. If you over focus on seriousness, to the neglect of embracing joy, you can forget to see there is hope and optimism still to be found in the world. If you over focus on humour and irreverence, to the neglect of the truth, jokes become cruel and flippant.
Curiosity helps us explore spirituality through the intentional act of perspective taking. Presence lets us pursue connection through enjoyment. Both seriousness and playfulness are necessary parts of the human experience. When you combine the best of both, you get impact with truth. For FU, that impact is wisdom through humour. And we hope the net result of that experience is positive. If you want to get really nerdy about colour design, our tetradic colour palette of yellow, blue, pink, and green are also polarity pairs. Their hex values are inverse of each other. There was an intentional choice to weave paradox through the visual identity to mirror the brand voice.
What has been the most surprising reaction or feedback you’ve received from customers about your products?
I’m always thrilled by the length of time people spend reading the product story cards. In an environment of shortened attention spans, hearing people say they wanted to read more and more is the highest compliment to receive. I really leaned into the ‘have fun with this’ mantra when writing the website FAQ, of which one result was a 936-word unintentional short essay on the performative nature of corporate sustainability initiatives and why even as a tiny company we should be trying our best despite being trapped in large economic systems beyond our control. Have a peek, it’s a spiral and a half.
Do you think there’s been a cultural shift in how people approach self-care and humor in difficult times? How does Freshly Unbothered fit into this new landscape?
The endless, rapid-fire news cycle has everyone feeling worn down. The state of permacrisis is draining at the best of times. And for good reason – there’s a lot of truly horrible things going on in the world. I think the tension we feel is found somewhere in the desire to help those in need and also have enough boundaries in place for individual self-preservation. How do we take responsibility for the impact we have, or the privilege we hold, while not succumbing to the overwhelm of all the world’s problems? I don’t have the answer to that. But there are some really, really smart, talented people out there doing incredible work to transform systems and processes bigger than any one person. We just tell shitty jokes. But if that makes an impact on someone, in a small, albeit positive way, and that enables them to do the same for someone else, then maybe micro ripples of good is where we fit in. At first glance FU is all about satire and irony. But when you dig a little deeper, at its core, it’s about connection. Connecting with yourself. Connecting with someone you care about. The delivery mechanism is humour, but the objective is acknowledgement. The acknowledgement of struggles. Of joy. Of changes that can both delight and terrify. Of all the things in life that make up the human experience. Of bearing witness, and saying, I see you.
What’s been the biggest challenge in transitioning from the corporate world to running your own satirical, irreverent business?
I truly miss having a big, diverse team. We’ve bootstrapped this thing from the ground-up and we’re still a tiny operation. My fondest memories are all from succeeding with, and learning from, the teams I’ve had the privilege of working with over years. With time, my hope is to create a great place to work where people can grow develop in ways that are meaningful to them. Unless we all die in a rogue asteroid strike or something equally likely given sequence of crises that seem to be constantly unfolding.
What’s next for Freshly Unbothered? Are there any new products or collaborations on the horizon that you’re excited to share?
Maybe we need some “Fuck Around & Find Out” coffee mugs for the office?! I love hearing what kind of crystals or merch our customers want to see next…so send your suggestions! I dream of future where a collaboration with Cards Against Humanity is a reality, so if anyone would like to petition them on our behalf, please get in touch. I’m 100% sure they’re unaware we exist, but there’s nowhere to go from there but up!
Win! A $250 Prize Pack From Freshly Unbothered!
Celebrate love and friendship this Galentine’s day with Freshly Unbothered’s cheeky collection of satire-laden gemstone bracelets. Freshly Unbothered creates jewellery that combines the stories of our everyday struggles with dark humour so you and your girlfriends can survive another day in the anxiety-inducing permacrisis.
One lucky Canadian winner will receive over $250 of favourites from FU’s “Love Life” collection and a selection of fan favourites including:
- Red Flag Parade
- It’s Not Me, It’s You
- Sentimental Luggage
- Don’t F*cking Care Bear
- Not Today Satan
- Anxious Icon
- Unbothered
- F*ck The Patriarchy
- An FU sticker pack
To enter, head over to Instagram, follow @freshlyunbothered and @vitadailymedia and make sure to fulfil all the entry rules in the caption of the corresponding contest post. Contest opens January 22, 2024 and closes January 29, 2024. Complete contest rules and regulations here. Please note: if you are the winner, you will receive a DM (direct message) in Instagram directly from @vitadailymedia. Please be wary of fake accounts, which often use similar handles with an extra or missing letter, number or symbol. We will never ask for a payment or for your credit card number, and we will never ask you to click through a link. If you are unsure whether you have been contacted, via Instagram, by us or a fake account, email us before responding.
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