<p>L'Officiel Philippines speaks to Jovy Acuzar, founder and director of lifestyle and wellness brand, Sigla.&nbsp;</p>

<div>
  <h6 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">What is Sigla and what made you start it?&nbsp;</span></b></h6>
  <span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><strong>Jovy Acuzar:</strong> Sigla is a lifestyle brand I started last 2020 with the intention of providing nutrition, health, and wellness tips to my local community.&nbsp;</span>
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<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I started this as a blog in May of 2020, however, I had been working on it since 2019 while I was completing my Nutritional Therapy Program in Australia. I was inspired to begin a lifestyle brand that gave simple tips and tools to help you live better and healthier. Having dealt with many health issues of my own growing up, I felt very passionate about starting something that would help others who struggled like me to understand better that they have the power to take control of their health&mdash;and it's never too late to start!&nbsp;</span></div>

<h6 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>Your website reads: "Your Guide to a Happy and Healthy Way of Life." What is this for you?&nbsp;</b></span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"></span></h6>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><strong>JA:</strong> Living a happy and healthy life means being able to do the things you want to do and enjoy the things you want to enjoy, it means understanding your body and learning how to tune in and listen to its needs, it means treating your body right, it means understanding that food is fuel. That&rsquo;s why at Sigla, we really focus on providing fresh and fun content that shows that living well doesn&rsquo;t mean restricting yourself all the time. Instead, we find ways to make healthy dishes more fun, we bring products we know would be easy to incorporate into your self-care routine and we create fun and excting products within this space.&nbsp;</span></p>

<h6 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">How do you curate your selection on your shopping site?&nbsp;</span> </b></h6>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9375rem; letter-spacing: 0px;"><strong>JA:</strong><b> </b>When I was living in New York &nbsp;during my culinary program, I had always been the person obsessed with looking for new health and wellness products, be it in food, or beauty, skin or fitness. I was inspired by places like the East Village Organics, The Clean Market, The Popup Grocer, and so many more that had such a well-curated selection of products for wellness enthusiasts. During these times, I had already been scouting for brands and products I felt would have potential in the local market. We select them based on their quality, and of course, price. Also, it always has to bring something unique and different to the table which I think most of our partner brands do.&nbsp;</span></p>

<h6 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>You also have a line of "Sigla Goods." How did you decide what items to come out with first? Are your goods made locally? How does product development go?</b></span></h6>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><strong>JA: </strong>Our Sigla Goods line had always been part of the plan, I really wanted to create our own line of wellness and food products that were up to our standards. We started with the Sigla Mat in mind but we extended this to other detoxifying tools and sustainable products such as our bamboo toothbrush, Gua Sha stones, and most recently, our Detoxifying Dry Brush, which has been such a hit. So many people come to us telling us of the benefits they&rsquo;ve experienced adding dry brushing to their routine or tell us how much they love our mat and its colors, it really fuels us to do more.</span></p>

<div>
  <h6 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>Are you planning to expand Sigla Goods? What kind of products are you looking to include in the range?&nbsp;</b></span></h6>
  <span style="color: #000000; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><strong>JA: </strong>We&rsquo;ve got loads of products coming soon. Our Matcha Powder, which we source straight from Japan, is the highest grade matcha available and is certified organic. It took us a while to find the right powder because a lot of the ones available were organic but were too bitter and didn&rsquo;t have the aroma that matcha is supposed to have. We finally found one we were happy with, after having so many matcha lattes in the process of testing. We are also launching some really cool merch soon! I&rsquo;m particularly excited about our boat bags and some more ideas that I won&rsquo;t discuss here as I want it to be a surprise. &nbsp;</span>
</div>

<h6 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>In your site you introduced a team of three women&mdash;yourself, Iyay Ignacio, and Alexe Villamarzo. How do you guys bump heads or brainstorm on ideas? It seems all of you love food and mindful eating. Who does which in terms of running the business, the socials, the look of the brand, etc?&nbsp;</b></span></h6>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><strong>JA:</strong> I&rsquo;m very proud about my team being mostly female! I head the team and run the business, I am involved in all aspects from design, product development, business development, etc., but the secret to Sigla&rsquo;s success is being big on collaboration. I love to brainstorm ideas with my team and we love testing products together. We have a very casual and relaxed setting at work but we always get things done. Alexe and I work heavily on the design elements of the brand together, she is so talented and skilled in graphic artistry. Iyay contributes recipes for us and she is such an amazing part of the team! She has given us so many wonderful recipes that focus heavily on using local ingredients whilst incorporating our products, she&rsquo;s also a professional chef so we learn a lot of great tips and tricks in the kitchen from her.&nbsp;</span></p>

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  <h6 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>Coming across Sigla, we felt it fulfilled an unaddressed niche in the local wellness market. Did you have this thought when you planned on putting up Sigla? Did you always plan on creating Sigla as an overall wellness resource and not just a shop?&nbsp;</b></span></h6>
  <span style="color: #000000; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><strong>JA: </strong>Oh, I&rsquo;m so glad to hear that! Yes, we definitely had this idea in mind. We really wanted to be a one-stop shop for goods but also for people to learn more about these topics that we feel are never really discussed &mdash; i.e., why you should go gluten-free? What is sugar&rsquo;s effect on the body? Why should I be eating vegetables? We also tackle topics like eating disorders which we feel is very important. So many of us beat ourselves up for not being perfect about what we eat and how much we exercise.&nbsp;</span>
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<div><span style="color: #000000; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"></span><span style="color: #000000; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Through Sigla's content, we wanted to show that living well means being able to enjoy the things you want to enjoy, which you can really see with all our interviews with inspiring women who have gone through different things with their bodies and have ultimately found their own way of living healthily. It&rsquo;s amazing to see how well the content and the products have been received and we can&rsquo;t wait to keep going.</span></div>

<h6 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>What's in store for Sigla in the next five years?</b></span></h6>
<p><span style="color: #000000; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><strong>JA: </strong>We&rsquo;re hoping to expand by having more products and goods under our brand name. We also hope to be able to set up a physical retail space where we can really interact and communicate with our customers.</span></p>

<h6 style="text-align: left;"><em>Visit Sigla at www.sigla.ph and @hellosigla on Instagram.</em></h6>

Hello, Sigla: This Wellness Resource Lets You Discover Joy in Health

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