Montana Lower is a beautiful force to be reckoned with. Scroll through Instagram, and you’ll find many advocating their love for Mother Nature. It’s rare, however, to find someone who genuinely practices what they preach. Montana has an Honours degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering and centres her Byron Bay life around living sustainably. The passion she feels for the environment around her oozes through her writing and imagery.
Nature-lover, artist, writer, model… and Civil & Environmental Engineer.
Montana talks us through what wellbeing means to her, tips for living a more sustainable life and her favourite way to spend the weekend in Byron Bay. “Personally, I feel that we are nature, so we should try as much as we can to stay as close to natural as possible,” she says.
You’re passionate about wellbeing for both yourself and the environment around you. What does wellbeing mean to you?
To me, wellbeing is about taking a holistic approach to the betterment of your overall health. It’s about checking in with all parts of your life and asking yourself, ‘Is this making me truly happy?’. Wellbeing can come in all forms: from eating well to making sure you move, to also making sure you treat yourself and allow yourself to be still.
What sparked your interest in Planet Earth and caring for it?
I’ve always grown up in natural environments (from Fiji to a tiny country town in North Queensland and now to Byron Bay). I think being surrounded by the beauty that nature has to offer really affirmed how important it is to live in coexistence with and in appreciation for the earth.
Can you give us some practical tips on how to live a more sustainable life?
I think there are a lot of ways that you can go about this and it gets more and more complex the more you know. The easiest way I approach this is by treating everything as a circular system: what comes in, must go out somehow. That means that every time I purchase something or bring something new into my life, I consider how long I will have it for, how often it will be used and eventually how it will be disposed of. The further breakdown of this is then to consider where the product comes from on both a social and environmental level. But I guess it all comes down to one question: ‘Do I really need this?’
Why is using environmentally-friendly, natural products so important to you?
Personally I feel that we are nature, so we should try as much as we can to stay as close to natural as possible. Of course, we live in a modern world, and there are so many things that technology can bring us, but bringing it back to simplicity and living synonymously with the environment is where I find I feel most balanced.
What is your favourite SENSORI+ home fragrance, and your ideal way to use it?
I love the Signature Unscented! Of course, I mix it up when I want to set a certain mood (for example, different scents get me excited for painting, where others make me want to be productive with computer work). Still, the unscented one is just a classic that I can use to do its magic without even having to be aware of it.
Finally, we’d love to hear about your perfect Byron Bay weekend?
It’s waterfall season now! So my favourite thing to do is get a little gang together, turn our phones off and head off in search of new waterfalls or other beautiful places. Byron is so spoilt with hinterland treasures, and I swear swimming in freshwater like that just makes your body tingle for the rest of the day!