The oil to success
AS A CHILD, Natasha Rodriguez showed an entrepreneurial streak. Case in point: On a summer visit to her grandmother, she used her allowance to make mangoflavored iced candies and peddled them to construction workers laboring nearby. The proceeds were then used to buy herself prepaid load.
In college, one professor told her that if she were to establish an enterprise, it had to be something she was passionate about. No, it wasn’t iced candy. She was fond of something else: having a massage every week or so. But she didn’t feel the same for the mineral oil the masseur applied on her skin, which, she found, could clog pores.
“So, I said, okay, I want to come up with my own massage oil,” Ms. Rodriguez recalled in an interview with BusinessWorld. She also happened to be partial to goods made using natural ingredients. “I like using natural products on my skin and eat organic food to help me become healthy and well,” she said.
With a P10,000 startup capital provided by her parents, Ms. Rodriguez founded VitaOils in November 2006. (“Vita” is a Latin word meaning “life”.) VitaOils retails a variety of topical products: mulberry healing oils, available in flavors like lavender and peppermint and eucalyptus, insect repellent, bath salts and balm. These are, of course, allnatural.
Ms. Rodriguez sources her ingredients from different suppliers. For instance, the mulberry extracts come from a collective based in Bacolod, from which she hails. She was introduced to the group by her mother. The collective, she said, makes herbal medicines for farmers who don’t have the wherewithal to buy over-thecounter drugs. Meanwhile, the essential oils are imported.
VitaOils is a home-based one-woman shop. Ms. Rodriguez does everything on her own — from taking orders, to creating the products to having them delivered to customers. This situation is all the more remarkable considering that she’s an energy healing practitioner, helping individuals with psychological issues, on the side. She took an aromatherapy course, specializing in skin care and baby products, to be able to craft her merchandise, which are tested by a chemist and a dermatologist for safety and quality.
The business was doing well until 2008 when a disaster struck. Ms. Rodriguez was swindled by one of her suppliers, losing not just her earnings, but her savings as well. She said that she will never forget it. In retrospect, however, she was somehow grateful for the experience. “If that didn’t happen, I would still be that gullible person who would just be so trusting of everybody,” she said. Now that she’s wiser, Ms. Rodriguez sees to it that her suppliers are legitimate by conducting spot checks, for example.
Since then, good things have happened. Ms. Rodriguez shared that VitaOils is now a supplier of massage oils for a high-end resort in Palawan. An officer of the said resort got a chance to try out a product of hers, and was impressed by it. Many of her other customers are similarly impressed.
Ms. Rodriguez said that there was one client, a teacher in Taguig, who had a son with a bad cough that had been going on for weeks. The teacher told her that her son felt better after using one of her healing oils. “It’s stories like this that make me happy,” Ms. Rodriguez said, “I know that I’m fulfilling my job because I’m actually helping other people relieve any ailment that they are experiencing.”
If everything goes according to plan, VitaOils will soon have its own website and a laboratory. Ms. Rodriguez said she’s been saving up for these. This year, however, VitaOils customers can look forward to a line of essential oils Ms. Rodriguez is targeting to release.