10 Nov Influencer Q&A with Catalina Miguel from @theunimpossibles

In today’s influencer Q&A we sit down with Catlina Miguel from @theunimpossibles. We chat to her about launching a beauty business in a Paris hostel, how she juggles her go-getter lifestyle, and what to expect from her over the next 12 months.

Tell us a bit about your background and how you came about starting The Unimpossibles

The creation of The Unimpossibles is a bit of a long story! I always wanted my own business and went into business straight out of uni and failed miserably – going to NZFW and getting myself $10k into debt and not selling a thing! Graduating with a fashion degree in NZ in a recession wasn’t the best of timing so I decided to move to Melbourne to try my luck there, ending up working at Witchery head office in digital for 5 years. It was actually a hard time for me and mind and body suffered (so cliche!) and I was stressed out and hormones were crazy. I happened to come across Dr Libby and her books inspired me to completely change my lifestyle as well as give up alcohol. After that, I noticed dramatic changes in my health and wellbeing and had lots of free time which I used to make clean eating recipes and interview people doing exciting things around Australia and New Zealand. At Witchery I met a blogged called Lisa Teh of couturing.com who pestered me to turn my hobby into a blog literally every day until I started my blog theunimpossibles.com.

After a while, TU started taking off in terms of Instagram coverage and interest and I have had the chance to collaborate with some of Melbournes coolest bloggers as well as use it to travel around Bali and Europe!

We are drooling over the deliciousness in your “oh noms” category, what’s your philosophy when it comes to food?

I think life is all about balance and that without health, you are nothing. I am prone to eating like an animal and am the first to admit that I have no self-control.

So to meet the goal of healthy eating, I plan to have delicious clean snacks around and fresh whole foods in my fridge. Although I am prone to be tempted by an oversized donut, it is more about sharing that donut with another and only having one every now and then – that way it is more special and more about enjoying it than eating my feelings. Instead, I focus on eating as much nutrient dense food as often as possible so I can be flexible when needed. If I am stressed out and want to stuff my face and feelings, I try to manage my mind with meditation and yoga first instead.

Then above that, food should be eaten with your eyes as much as possible. I get real enjoyment of taking inspiration from beautiful food photography from magazines and Instagram and using that to create something delightful myself.

If running a blog wasn’t enough, you also have your own business! Tell us a bit about comme.co

The Unimpossibles was never meant to be to be a money maker but I learnt so much interviewing small business owners (it was like a second business school!) and finally got the courage to be like “I can do this too!”. So I started planning comme.co – a beauty range made from all natural ingredients starting with Activated Coconut Charcoal.

Meanwhile, I had been with my ex for 11 1/2 years and we felt our lives were going in different directs and decided to breakup. Career wise, I had gone as far as I could at Witchery becoming the Online Operations Manager after completing several very intense projects and going through 2 company mergers over 5 years!

So I did what any normal 28 year old would do and quit my whole life, put everything into a 3x3m storage shed and went travelling using TU as leverage and launched comme.co in a hostel in Paris. Obviously, you can’t run a business that is new and labor intensive out of a backpack, so after 6 months I finally landed back in NZ to clean up the mess I had made and catch up on a lot blog posts as well as plan my decent back into full time work. I wasn’t looking for love.. but somehow I found my Charlie and in May of this year we moved to Sydney so I could take on a new Digital Manager role.

Since my return back to NZ and now Sydney, we have had a lot of time to really focus on comme.co and give it the love (and money!) it needs and in return it keeps having little growth spurts!

The next step is to take the brand further by introducing more products that fit our ethos – whether they are AU made, organic, eco friendly or 100% natural Where we can we try and meet as much as that criteria as possible! I am very inspired by Mother Nature and think she gets it right most of the time! I want a business that I can be proud is making a difference – which is where the “Be the change you want to be”. Further, we hope to be able to start giving back with some of our exciting up and coming products as well as collaborate with some awesome local talent. Watch this space!

Describe a typical work day for you.

Primarily my day is at my full time job as a Digital Manager covering everything to eDM sends, CRM, customer service, operations, social media, SEO and project management. On my walk to work, I’ll post any comme.co orders,catch up on TU and comme.co emails and social media. After work, we make dinner, dispatch orders and can do anything from hand making new batches of facial masques to ordering new packaging to answering customer queries! To be honest, we work a lot, but it is worth it, and quite a great use of time compared to watching TV!

We love following your journey, what can we expect to see on @theunimpossibles over the next year?

The Unimpossibles will be focusing more on interviewing great local talent who are making a different as well as more inspirational, tasty clean eating recipes.

It has been a fluid learning approach with the content that works for us, and with so much else going on in our lives we have down scaled our commitments!

Now that we are settled, we will definitely be making great use of local Sydney haunts and amazing shops and hope to deliver some amazing recipes that will take you through summer in style.

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