Wakaya Perfection

Wakaya is a 2,200-acre island in the Fiji archipelago. David Gilmour, the entrepreneur who founded FIJI Water, bought it with his wife Jill in 1973 and opened The Wakaya Club & Spa there in 1990. The company said organic ginger grew on the island in volcanic soil, tended by hand and washed with rainwater.

Gilmour wanted the island to pay its own way. He later met Todd Smith, a network marketing leader from Utah, who proposed selling the island's products through independent sellers. In 2016 the two launched Wakaya Perfection as a direct sales company. Smith and president Bill Andreoli both came from Youngevity, and the company ran from offices in Lindon, Utah.

“Wakaya Perfection was founded to bring the island's unique healing treasures to the world and to provide Wakaya with the ongoing resources to preserve its pristine environment.”

Wakaya Perfection, About page — mywakaya.com, 2019 (archived)

The company grew its range from ginger and spa products into nutrition packs and weight-loss programs, and opened a market in Japan. Its 2019 site still advertised a cruise for top Ambassadors and a leader retreat in Dallas. By the end of that year, though, the business was about to change hands.

The company described its mission as offering “the world's purest and finest all-natural preventative healing products.” In practice, the range grew in three waves.

• Island staples: organic Pink Fijian Ginger and Fijian turmeric as powders and capsules, edible Ginger Gems, Fijian sea salt, coconut oil and ginger, turmeric and kava teas.
• Spa and personal care: calcium bentonite clay masques, essential oils, a ginger shampoo and TaLei skin care.
• Nutrition and weight loss: GT Core packs, which the company said supported digestion, detox, inflammation and nutrition; BulaFIT keto packs and challenges; Keto Kofi coffee; and Cherish pads.

Health benefits were the company's own claims, not proven facts. Prices on the old Direct Sales Aid profile ran from $8.95 for Ginger Gems or a Daily Detox Masque to $218.75 for a one-month BulaFIT pack.

Sellers were called Ambassadors, or Independent Business Ambassadors. They sold through a personal web portal, at events and to people they knew. Customers could buy once or join a monthly autoship as Preferred Customers. The company handled stock, order processing and shipping.

Getting started

Joining cost as little as $49.95, which covered the online sales portal and back office, according to the old Direct Sales Aid profile. Optional product packs, including Paradise Packs, cost more; the profile listed startup costs up to about $499.

Pay

The company called its plan Perpetual Compensation. In 2019 its site listed 10% to 20% commission on retail and Preferred Customer orders, paid weekly, plus Fast Start bonuses, team bonuses of 5% to 20% on up to five levels, generational and matching bonuses, car bonuses, travel incentives and global revenue pools. It said there were no personal purchase requirements. Top earners joined the Grand Wakaya Club, and trips to Wakaya and cruises were offered as rewards. For actual results, the company pointed to its compensation guide; no income figures are repeated here.

In late 2019 Wakaya Perfection's seller business was sold to Terry LaCore's LaCore Enterprises and rebranded as Bulavita, an industry news blog reported in 2021, citing incorporation records from December 2019. The full Wakaya Perfection site was last archived in its usual form in December 2019. By May 2020, bulavita.com was live, selling an M20 Boost pack built around muscadine grapes alongside the old Pink Fijian Ginger and turmeric, and the BulaFIT line carried over. By June 2020, the old mywakaya.com address pointed to The Wakaya Group, a retail store for Wakaya Perfection products.

Bulavita did not last long either. In April 2021, BBB National Programs' Direct Selling Self-Regulatory Council referred Bulavita to the Federal Trade Commission after the company did not respond to questions about product and earnings claims. The same month, Bulavita's team moved to a partnership with Juuva. Two months later that deal ended.

“So even with the best of intentions on both sides, with Juuva and Bulavita to make this work, we found that the differences in the compensation were just too great.”

Bill Andreoli, president of Bulavita — Facebook webinar to Bulavita Ambassadors, June 2021

The sellers relaunched as Mfinity Global in June 2021. On October 4, 2022, Medical Marijuana, Inc. announced that it had bought Mfinity Global's assets. Mfinity products moved to its Kannaway brand and Andreoli became Kannaway's president.

Today the Wakaya Perfection name survives only in retail. Fijian press reported in 2024 that co-owner David Roth was selling the products to stores and on TV shopping. The mywakaya.com address is now a parked page, and wakayaperfection.com forwards to a third-party wellness store whose two Wakaya items were sold out on October 2, 2026. There is no Ambassador program.