Modern-day albularya Jennifer Polintan shows her invented malunggay hair shampoo in her Salon de Albularyo in Cabanatuan City.
CABANATUAN CITY – As a kid, Jennifer Polintan was used to resorting to natural remedies provided by a hilot (touch therapist), including the use of “dahun-dahon” (leaves of medicinal plants), to remedy her ailment.
Extreme poverty was the main reason why Polintan and the rest of her family embraced that practice.“We cannot afford the fee for a doctor’s consultation and buy the medicine to be prescribed,” she said.
Her favorite “doctor” then was Lola Nelly in their neighborhood in Caloocan City. She was even told then by the woman that she would someday be a natural healer, too.
She dismissed what Lola Nelly told her.
“When you are poor, what you want is to improve in life. You want to free yourself from poverty. If I become a herb doctor, I will not earn money,” Polintan said.
But today, after landing in different kinds of jobs, including being a singer in Japan, Polintan, 38, is dubbed as an albularya (folk healer).
She doesn’t mind the tag as she put up and operates “Salon de Albularyo” in Barangay Fatima, which is in the heart of the business center here.
But she is a modern-day “albularya” whose life’s circumstance has changed dramatically.
She invented malunggay shampoo, which she named “Moringa Oleifera Age Defying Shampoo” and depicted its beneficial effect through the words “Goodbye Grey Hair!!!”. The first two words are the scientific name of malunggay (horse raddish tree).
She has also “concocted” and developed other body wellness and hair and skin care organic products out of the “malunggay”.
By words of mouth, radio interviews and press accounts, her inventions and her salon have been giving her acclaim and fortune.
‘SALON DE ALBULARYO’
While working as a singer in Japan, Polintan felt restlessness in her heart. Although already earning much, she felt something was missing in her life.
She found the answer, when she, in the company of her colleagues, went to a touch therapy clinic in Japan.
The therapy, which gave her the relaxation she sought, was done by an old woman who did it, she felt, in a traditional way. She went back to the Philippines.
“I found myself studying touch therapy, reflexology, and cupping (bentusa massage),” Polintan said. “I joined national and international associations engaged in those fields for knowledge expansion”, she said.
(Bentusa is a procedure wherein heat is used to produce a vacuum under the strategically placed glasses, initially with lighted candles), on the back of the body. It is said to take away negative energies.
She stayed for a while in Gapan City, which was the native place of her parents, and settled here to practice her “gift of natural healing”.
“I found the words of Lola Nelly then coming true. But I wish to add that I became a modern-day albularya,” she said.
She brought her healing skills even with women professionals here who liked her touch healing and reflexology practice. By holding their palms and pressing pressure points, she was able to say what was ailing them if they had health problem.
It happened that one of her clients was a medical doctor. She told her what was ailing her. “Oh my, you are an albularya,” was the doctor’s response to her as if to say she was right.
That gave her an idea. She put up her “Salon de Albularyo” in 2007. She trained her staff of young ladies who are the mainstays in her salon that provides “hilot” (traditional healing) for body wellness in the saloon’s cubicle.
Her salon, which has been licensed by the Department of Health, has offered services for body wellness for those suffering or complaining of hypertension, scoliosis, asthma, migraine, frozen muscles, and arthritis, including stroke patients and pregnant women.
Her licensed therapists are oftentimes sought for “healing” services in big hotels here.
MALUNGGAY MIRACLE
Wanting to come up with products of her own, she surfed the internet in search of a plant or herb whose properties she can develop for products which she can use in her salon.
It was malunggay, dubbed as the miracle tree and nature’s medicine cabinet, that attracted her most.
“I powderized the leaves and bark of the malunggay, extracted oil from the seeds, and mixed them with other components I obtained from Japan and France. Through trial and error, I came up with a different kind of hair shampoo,” Polintan said.
She tried the product for her hair. After a few weeks, her salon attendants blurted something which made her heart leaped.
“Ma’m, itim na po ang mga salit na puting buhok ninyo at “yong maliliit na tumutubo ay hindi na puti (Ma’m, your strands of hair that turned white became dark and the growing small ones are no longer white),” she was told.
She tried the product with her men and women customers and gave samples to her acquaintances. They attested that their grey or white hair had become dark after a few weeks of using her shampoo.
They became her ardent product endorsers and distributors.
Her colleagues in the “Likhang Novo Ecijano Manufacturers Association”, of which she is a member of the board of trustees and treasurer, also help her promote her product.
Her shampoo has customers in Manila, some cities in Mindanao, and even in the Middle East through some of her “balik-bayan” customers.
Polintan said she is personally producing the product in her residence here and hired some neighbors to package them into stand-up pouch (200 milligram pack) and sells them at the usual price of hair shampoos in the market.
She is now bent in putting up a plant in order to satisfy requirements for halal accreditation and more production outputs for her shampoo and other malunggay body wellness products.
“With my products, I developed my own concept of body wellness, including taking care of the hair,” Polintan said.
Having a brand new car, which she drives, and a condominium, Polintan said: “Being an albularya is wonderful”.
(Salon de Albularyo can be reached through the following telephone numbers: (044) 600-637; 09193996498 and 09228733304)
