I was so excited when a dear friend of mine, Colleen Vrbin, decided to start her own business, Analytical Insights. She is an extremely talented researcher and analyst that's applied her skills to various disciplines in her more than 10 years of professional experience. There is nothing that makes me happier as a small business owner than to connect others with talented and passionate individuals, especially ones that share my passion for healthy living.
I asked Colleen to share a little more about her new business and I think you'll find her writing below to be an extremely creative presentation of Colleen's feedback on Wailani's Coconutty Calm Body Scrub. Colleen embodies the vision behind Wailani's, to have fun and live healthy and she has accomplished this by being brave in starting her own business. I hope you enjoy learning more about what she offers to businesses that need research solutions.
Analytical Insights Evaluates Wailani's
What does it mean to live healthy? There is so much advice out there – get eight hours of sleep a night, watch no more than two hours of TV a day, exercise at least one hour a day, laugh more than 20 times a day, eat fewer than 2,000 calories a day, pray, love…the list goes on and on. I can’t live up to each of those goals, as a woman who works full time, has two (soon to be three) young children, and three pets (two dogs and a bunny). To me, the biggest priorities of living healthy right now include feeding my family healthy foods and trying to minimize unnecessary toxins. I’m on board with organic fruits and veggies, organic cage free eggs, and no genetically modified ingredients. We don’t make our own homemade cleaning products for everything, but utilize good ‘ol vinegar and baking soda whenever possible, and rely on brands that exclude harsh chemicals for everything else. We avoid plastics unless they are BPA-free, and never use plastic containers in the microwave regardless of BPA status. And while we all have sweet teeth in my family, snacking on apples and cucumbers is more common than candy (except for the few days following Halloween!).
While I put thought in to what we consume and the types of cleaning products we use, I had, until recently, completely overlooked body care. I would just buy whatever body wash smelled the prettiest. Then my friend started Wailani's, and my eyes were opened. A body scrub made only of ingredients you could actually pronounce?! Not made in a lab?! Delicious smells?! And great benefits, like reducing stretch marks (of which I'm particularly interested at the moment, being eight months pregnant). I bought a container of Coconutty Calm, and let me just say I'm more than happy. My shower time has been transformed into mini spa time. The aromas are amazing, the scrub is incredible.
But hearing about someone’s opinion, especially a friend of the founder, may not necessarily carry a lot of weight. It just so happens that I’m also a data enthusiast (by the way, if you have any analytics needs, check me out at Analytical Insights). I have some figures to convey the results. Beginning in early 2013, my winter skin was fairly rough (Figure 1). As the spring approached, it improved slightly. However, when I began using Coconutty Calm in August, I saw a definite improvement. And with regular use, I feel like I have skin almost as soft as a newborn right now!
Soft skin is great, but the other component to the benefits I’ve experienced while using Wailani’s product is the overall shower experience. The aroma of the scrub is amazing, and the experience is spa-like. Figure 2 shows that my showers earlier in the year were fairly boring – regular body wash, shampoo, conditioner, done. Now my showers are super relaxing, and Zen-like. I’m definitely a happy customer.
Plus, I can feel good about the product because it is all natural. No benzohexacyclooxzene or yellow dye #5 here! Just a happy customer – and a happy mom makes a happy family!
Speaking of happy, another very important component of healthy living for me personally is job satisfaction. It makes me happy to make others happy, and that is even more important for me to do at a job where I spend most of my day. It can be hard to juggle the responsibilities as a mom, care for the house and pets, and feel productive at a job. Recently, after a lot of thought and a great amount of support from my amazing husband, I started my own business, Analytical Insights, LLC. I love data, I love anlaysis, I love explaining data and the results of the analysis to help people use that information to make decisions, so in many ways this is a dream position. Instead of working as an analyst with one type of data for one type of organization, I get to branch out and work with more people on more datasets for more problems to solve! I’m less than a month in to this venture full time, but so far, I couldn’t be happier! This was definitely a great move to secure my mental healthy living! And if you find yourself in need of any analytical work, write-ups, presentation preparations, grant writing, or anything that falls under the research umbrella, please contact me at cvrbin@analyticalinsights.io.