Fascinating Women: Angely Dub On Why Her Wellness Brand Happi Lab Is Important Today

We've long been fans of Angely Dub, the multi-hyphenate woman who wears many hats, and juggles plenty. She is best known as the young entrepreneur behind Access Travel, and has since then grown to create more brands under her wing. Not stopping anytime soon, we talked to one of our Fascinating Women of the month, Angely, about her wellness brand Happi Lab, a brand born from years of family practices that need to be shared with the world. Read on!

Metro.Style: What is the concept behind Happi Lab? 

Angely Dub: I found out seven years ago that I had PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome). PCOS is a disorder for women. So, I started to gain weight, I don’t eat normal stuff—I don’t even eat pork and beef, very very occasionally, so I’m very mindful of what I eat but I learned it on my own. The reason behind this is because my dad died at the age of 13, so that led me be very very conscious of what I eat, how I think, how I work out, based on our last interview about working out. That’s the root of who I am or how I do things in life. The concept behind it is this: people think it’s all restrictions, restrictions, restrictions, but in reality it’s not like that. Being healthy is a balance, being mindful, knowing what you put inside your mouth. It’s not like cutting off everything, cutting off sugar, rice, salt, it’s not like that. In the end, I believe it’s really balance, knowing how to do things, how to execute them. That’s the concept behind it. It’s all Ayurveda practices. Ayurveda are the practices that were done by my grandparents, so they died very healthy, no single disease like high blood pressure, cancer, nothing, nothing at all. So, these are daily routines that we do to help us keep healthy and keep moving and moving. As long as you take care of your gut health, which is your digestive system, and your metabolism, you wont really get severely, I don’t know if it’s the right term, sick in your life.

These are all natural practices from the daily food that we eat, like the spices. When I found out I had PCOS, my mom gave me this potion which I’ve been taking for 12 years already, since I was 18, but when I found out that I had PCOS, and my period can stop without any signal, that was the time I had to take it every single day. That's when I became mindful that gluten is bad for me, dairy is bad for me, that’s why even if I have intense PCOS, I don’t get acne and I was able to do my weight loss naturally because I just gained it from hormones anyway. So these are the things that women are not aware of because of. Aside from people are not really investing time in self-education, like everything is already found on Google, but sometimes, people just don’t want to study. 

MS: How did you start the business?

AD: It was very experimental, because these are all our practices that in the beginning, my mom didn't really allow me to bring it to the market because she didn’t want people to think that this is medicine, because in the end, it's not medicine. These are practices that you can do for long-term benefits, like my mom now is turning 50, and she does not have hypertension or anything. She still works like me, moves like me, works out like me, even her hair is like mine, her skin is way way better than mine!

MS: What do you offer?

AD: So we only have three products at the moment. It’s Happi Morning Potion, which is good for PCOS and your metabolism, then your digestive system, and we came out with an Immunity Booster which helps you with your immunity of course. It also helps solve issues like acne, it also helps you with some of the mental health problems because it helps you relax. It helps you sleep. The basic ingredient of everything are all our spices from our farms in India. We bring the spices into the Philippines; they're free of chemicals and they're all organic. The last one is Kombucha, initially Happi Lab started with just Kombucha. My sister experimented with the Kombucha. It is a fermented drink that’s a substitute for your afternoon coffee, post or pre-workout drink, after your meals or anytime you crave for sugar.

MS: What wellness values does Happi Lab uphold?

AD: Protect your metabolism and your gut health, and number 2, nature has the power to heal you if you just put your time into studying it. Remember, the parents of our parents, and their parents, they never took a pill in their entire life. It was all how you move, how you work out. If you’re just sitting down the whole day and you expect to lose weight, that’s never going to happen. You always have to discipline yourself. Just because you have a whole pizza in front of you, it does not mean you’re going to eat the whole thing. You can have one slice, but that’s it, that’s discipline. Those are some of the values that we want to share with people.

We also want to encourage people to give up sugar, which is the root of so many things and we are also trying to remind people, we call it the Happi Reminders—daily things, daily practices/routines that can actually help you to achieve the goal that health is wealth. I think during this time of a pandemic, I think I taught people what it really means when you say health is wealth because health has been taken for granted by so many people. They're only finding out now that nothing means anything if you’re not healthy. It doesn't mean you have to exert so much time and effort into it like working out three hours a day. It’s actually very simple practices that can lead you and help you live a longer and happier life. 

MS: Why is it an essential business today?

AD: Honestly, with Happi Lab, we want to build a community to help Filipinos understand what Ayurveda is. In my case, when I found out about the PCOS, up to now that I’m 30, I never took a single birth control or hormonal pill to balance my hormones. It’s my mindful practices—eat this and not that, sleep at this time and not like that, work out like this and not like that. I know when to stop, I know when to rest. So I’m so proud to say that because of Happi Lab potions, I never took a single pill to help me with my hormones and my PCOS. I get my period every month and I go to the OB once in a while. I did not cure myself, but I help myself understand what PCOS was. So now, this is what I wanted, to build a community of people where they will understand these small practices. This potion is like a powder. You take it in the morning with lemon clementine or apple cider vinegar, then it helps you cut down your cravings the whole day, which leads to a healthier life, weight loss, you feel better, you don’t feel sluggish. You’re cutting sugar from your system. 

MS: How do you practice wellness in your life?

AD: I’ve been taking these potions first thing in the morning. I don’t start my day with sugar, 3-in-1 coffee, coffee with sugar, cereals, no. First thing in the morning, I get a clove of garlic, ingest it, then next is the potion. So I’m starting my engine with cinnamon, turmeric, black pepper, and ginger powder. That’s the potion, to jumpstart my metabolism. My metabolism is already revved up. That’s why my metabolic rate up to now is an age of 19 and there’s a way to measure that and I’m 30 because of these small practices. So this is also why I don’t get much acne, PCOS, my period is normal, my hormones are normal.

It's also because I always know how to rest, rest, rest. You are not a superhero, and you don’t need to be. You have to stop at some point because the more you learn how to rest, take a break and when I say rest, that’s every single day, give an hour to yourself every single day, watch Netflix, eat a piece of chocolate, what makes you happy, workout one hour without your phone, without talking to anyone. So those are my practices. I work out every day, I watch Netflix, I write on my journal, or I play with our baby. Our baby is my aunt’s kid. That’s how I practice wellness everyday and I know when I want eat pizza, it’s a basic practice, one slice lang. I plan my health in my head—I have a journal, 'okay Angely, yesterday you ate cake, so today you have none, eat it again next time, maybe two days after'. That's how I plan.

It’s just a balance, that’s how I practice wellness. I don’t think believe in fad diets, I don’t believe in reducing, Keto diet, nothing. I only believe in balance because if I eat pizza today, tomorrow I should be consuming healthy. I'll have celery juice ako in the morning, then for lunch it’s all protein with veggies. I’m not going to eat rice. It’s just balance. Angely’s diet is balance, for my physical health, for my emotional health, for my mental health, that’s it. I know how to cut down toxic people, toxic traits, toxic food, toxic behavior. That’s it, it’s all about balance. 

MS: How do you see Happi Lab in the next five years? 

AD: Another five years is such a long time with Happi Lab, because I don’t have Access Travel at the moment, so I really don’t need to be in a rush to plan. I really want to build a community where I can talk to people, where I can help them understand what kombucha is. So I hope in the next five years, through my podcast that I recently launched which is Life In Progress, I can help people understand by bringing in more people to talk about many many things in life, like health, family, everything is connected. That’s how I wanted to align Happi Lab.

Everything is connected, your brain, your emotions, your body, your work, the way you think, the way you walk—they’re all connected. I want to make Happi Lab a community where everyone can fit in, men, women, pregnant, every kind of women, seniors, everyone. That’s what I want to build. So in five years, which is a long long time, so now I’m really really enjoying it, helping people.

I’m really having fun since I’m even learning how these things work because it’s my first time to be in an online business. I’ve been a women in service business, which is Access Travel, but with what's happening in the world, there’s no hope with Access Travel at the moment. I’m shifting my energy here because this is something that’s me, what I drink, what I eat, what I do, so I really want to help women understand. That’s my goal for now. If there’s something I want to add, I think I want to add is for people to stop doing things that people know are already bad for us.

We know hotdogs and rice are bad for us in the morning, but you still put that in your mouth. I think these are the things that I really want to educate people with—yes you can eat these things, but just don’t eat them first thing in the morning because mornings are your foundation, how you start a day. If in the morning you put sugar in your body, you won’t be able to function right the whole day. You feel bad, you crave for more and more.

In my 20s I’ve learned from meeting so many people, one root of unhappiness is when we don’t feel good about ourselves and that comes from many many times, like we don’t like our hair, our face, our skin, our weight. The first rule in everything is you have to accept that Angely has stretch marks, Angely has extra stored fat. You can’t compare your reality with someone’s filtered photo that you see on social media. We are all having our own struggles, that’s why with Happi Lab, everything is so organic. Photos are from our phones. I post everyone’s photos. It’s not curated, it’s not planned, it’s just everything I see in a day. In Happi Lab, I want to make it a real-life account where you feel at home and you understand that we are all the same. That’s something I want to do also with my podcast, wherein I try to share real stories because I think that’s something that is missing right now. Everything is so created, everything is so perfect, so we are forgetting that we can’t be perfect. Nobody is perfect. 

Shop Happi Lab here.