Lupton’s Monday Haircare brand has been a runaway success, and this year she’s launched another brand, Osana Naturals, offering a range of hand soap, skin and haircare products.
The couple have been open about their fertility struggles, believing it would help others.
“It’s been so hard to get her, I want to enjoy her,” Lupton said.
It had taken her two years to become pregnant with her first child, and it took her another two years to get pregnant again.
While she is on maternity leave, Lupton will be working on a project called Gingernut’s Angels to help couples struggling to conceive ease the financial burden of IVF treatment.
Through the project, she’d already helped a few families that were close to her or had similar struggles regarding paying for IVF treatment.
Among those she has helped was one who had also lost a baby at 24 weeks but could not afford fertility treatment - but she felt she had to do more.
“Imagine not only trying for a baby and wanting a baby, but not having the luxury of being able to afford to do IVF. It kept me up at night,” she says.
Gingernut’s Angels was launched with initial funding of $500,000, with a plan to back that up with a dollar-for-dollar campaign, matching donations that come in.
Mowbray did that in the past to raise hefty amounts for the Foodbank Project during the Covid era, and for Starship’s paediatric ICU (PICU).
“It’s a good formula because it creates awareness, with a social media campaign around the issue,” Lupton says.
She also wants to work in partnership with a fertility clinic, and the couple are already discussing brands they can launch, with 100 per cent of profits to go to Gingernut’s Angels.
New Zealanders can apply for two publicly funded IVF procedures but there are very strict criteria, including age, weight and the time spent trying to conceive, and waiting lists for treatment.
Lupton hopes to help 100 people in the first year, increasing the number each year.
