A PROFESSIONAL surfer, skin doctor and builder sit around a campfire, dreaming of a sunscreen they can wear and "feel good about".
For Jake Paterson, Scott McGregor, David Lodge and their partners Aeron, Katrina and Sally, it was a family surfing trip at Gnaraloo, that marked the beginning of an exciting, new business venture.
Western Australian based, We are Feel Good Inc. launched in 2016, after years of researching, developing, refining and testing.
The company prides itself in using a traditional staple of indigenous Australia - the Kakadu plum - which has been used in both food and medicine for more than 40,000 years.
Labelled the native 'wonder fruit', the plum is almost exclusively wild harvested with production extending from Broome, across the Northern Territory and into Queensland.
Company co-founder, skin doctor and cosmetic physician Dr Scott McGregor said the group found a gap in the market for high quality sunscreen and decided to take matters into their own hands.
"We came from the angle of producing a sunscreen people wouldn't mind wearing on a daily basis," Dr McGregor said.
"It needed to feel good, smell good and look good, but it also needed to include ingredients that weren't harmful to the environment."
As a cosmetic doctor, Dr McGregor's role was to keep the product on the cutting edge, ahead of the curve and interesting.
He decided adding hero ingredients to the skincare products would be one of the ways the company could "tick all of the boxes".
"We were looking to use vitamins that protect and help repair skin," he said.
"Vitamin C is great for those reasons and while we were researching more, the Kakadu plum came up as a potential ingredient.
"It was amazing as far as its concentration of Vitamin C - it has a thousand times more than that of an orange.
"The plum is super concentrated, there's no water in them.
"The good thing about using native Australian ingredients is that because it is such a harsh climate they are really nutrient-packed.
"You can imagine if you are a plant trying to survive in the Australian outback you are going to have to be pretty concentrated, conserving water and nutrients."
Upon further research, the group found the whole idea of the fruit being 100 per cent Australian and coming from the outback, made it a very interesting business model.
After many emails, phone calls and web searches with different contact managers they found a reliable and trustworthy manufacturer of the Kakadu plum.
"Our supplier is a member of the Union for Ethical Biotrade, so the members of the company are committed to sourcing with respect for people and biodiversity," Dr McGregor said.
"That is really important to us, as is being able to trace where we were sourcing the fruit from.
"We have certification to show that the fruit is from the Lombadina Aboriginal Corporation, which is part of the Northern Australian Kakadu Plum Alliance.
"It has been a long process, but it was so worth it and now we can use the plum in our future products."
The collection of Kakadu plum is permissible under a Territory Parks and Wildlife Permit and has several terms and conditions in place to ensure the sustainable collection of the fruit.
Firstly, the fruit must be collected within a designated one hectare area of Crown Land outside the Kakadu National Park and collection is prohibited within the park or any other protected area in the vicinity.
Harvesting must only be undertaken by hand and collection must be spread across the entire plot.
Total harvest at any time must not exceed 20 per cent of fruit present on plants within the plot and with a maximum of 50pc collected from any one plant.
Therefore, adequate local stocks of the species are maintained to provide seeds for natural regeneration.
"The fruit is harvested through the Lombadina Aboriginal Corporation and their staff," Dr McGregor said.
"It is the local community, who pick it, and there are different rules and regulations around who can pick it and how much you can pick at a time.
"I feel it is very important to know we aren't taking everything from that community to put into our products."
Dr McGregor said the response We Are Feel Good Inc. had received since launching its products had been overwhelmingly positive.
While the company wasn't yet big enough to work on its own clinical trials, trials on the Kakadu plum had produced clinically proven results highlighting the benefits the fruit has in protecting skin and removing pigment damage.
"Vitamin C in the Kakadu plum is amazing at finding free radicals," Dr McGregor said.
"You get free radicals from the sun and pollution in the air, so adding something like that in your sunscreen gives you extra protection from pollutants.
"Vitamin C is really good at mopping up these free radicals that air on your skin from the sun and pollution.
"But it has also been shown to help repair damaged skin, collagen and improve pigment damage."
The other vitamin We Are Feel Good Inc. uses is Vitamin B3, which also helps to repair and restore skin.
Dr McGregor said there was a fine line with some ingredients interfering with the sun blocking ingredient, so it was important that care was taken in what was added.
"You can't just go throwing in lots of Vitamin C or B3, you have to be careful how you do it," he said.
"It definitely isn't gimmicky and it serves a purpose."
As We Are Feel Good Inc. is a medically-graded product, the company uses virgin plastics and glasses, as part of its own recycling program.
"We are really big on the environment and outdoors," Dr McGregor said.
"Basically we came up with the idea to start our own recycling program, so we could actually recycle our own bottles and turn them into our own products.
"So rather than them going into typical landfill or everyday recycling, we get people to send their lids and bottles back and they then go to our recycling depot in Margaret River, as well as Victoria and Sydney.
"There they are put through the recycling process and we make combs out of the plastics, to use in our pamper packs."
The company has also made planter boxes from the plastics, which the recycling depots onsell at the local markets.
120 of the company's stockists are recycling points, so consumers return their bottles there, who then send them onto the recycling depots.
"It is about having a circular economy," Dr McGregor said.
"We are making sure we are constantly using and reusing as opposed to using and throwing out."
As well as sunscreen, the company has introduced moisturiser, zinc and lip balm to its product line.
