Prelude
For Subrina Liew, the founder of the Singaporean beauty label Caring Skin, stepping into the beauty industry was a calling. “I have never thought of being an entrepreneur,” she says. For her, it was all about helping the community.
“I realised acne and sensitive skin woes were issues that were underserved in the community. All I wanted to do was to help these individuals.”
Subrina Liew, founder of Caring Skin on the reason she started her brand.
According to Subrina, not many facial brands offered targeted solutions to acne and sensitive concerns then. That spurred her kickstart Caring Skin in 2013. Since then, the Singaporean plant-based beauty brand sets out to offer targeted solutions to help individuals with troubled skin. Subrina and her team do so by using clean products that are hypoallergenic, non-comedogenic, and free of mineral oil, SLS-, paraben, and sulfate.
With people becoming more savvy and knowledgeable, more individuals have sought treatment for their skincare concerns over the years, Subrina notes. Along this vein, she posits there might have been an over-treatment of the skin in the aesthetic industry. “Aesthetic treatments are used invasively to improve skin texture and appearance; treatments using a laser may over-stimulate and cause skin irritations,” she adds, noting how gentle solutions may at times work better.
Beyond just procuring quality ingredients (which comprise mostly plants or herbs), customer service behind Caring Skin is also paramount to its success. Subrina and her team members are amiable, resourceful and for some, they have even been known as great listeners. Customers, who are curious, may sign up for a skincare analysis to help them better understand their skin types and concerns, before tailoring the best solution forward.
In the lead-up before National Day, Subrina speaks exclusively with hoolah on her journey as an entrepreneur and the strategies that help pivot her business over the years and especially amidst a pandemic.
“Our dream is to be a Skin Coach who serves and helps millions of individuals with troubled skin with our holistic skincare solutions.”
Subrina Liew, founder of Caring Skin on Caring Skin’s ideals and aspirations.
What sets Caring Skin apart from other facial and beauty salons?
We are obsessed with helping customers solve their skin concerns. We want all our customers to feel at home when entering Caring Skin. We want them to feel like we are an extension of their family; we can be a listening ear, who they can rely on. We hope that Caring Skin will turn out to be the place to help release their stress, sleep peacefully, and recharge.
“We make it easy for everyone to achieve naturally healthy skin.”
Subrina Liew, founder of Caring Skin on what beauty means to the brand.
Today, what are some notable achievements Caring Skin has received?
We have always believed in word-of-mouth marketing. While social media are used extensively to generate new leads, word-of-mouth (marketing) has been the most successful. Since the start of 2019, we have been working hard to deliver a great Caring Experience for our customers; we have since been rewarded with 3,000 over 5 stars Facebook and Google reviews, probably the highest in this beauty industry. Our goal is to achieve 10,000 reviews by 2023.
How is Asian skin different from the rest? And how can treatments be tailored to Asian skin?
Due to our tropical climate, consumption of spicy and oily food, as well as a fast-paced stressful lifestyle, Asian skin is more prone to acne and sensitive skin woes. Gentle plant-based products are most suitable for our Asian skin.
“We make it easy. We use plant-based products with our tender loving care and painless extraction to gain customers’ trust to solve their skin problems.”
Subrina Liew, founder of Caring Skin on the brand’s principles to treating acne & sensitive skin.
How did COVID-19 impact your business?
We have seen 20-30% dips in sales due to the pandemic. But to have our customers’ spending sentiments and power dwindle is expected. After all, many have been rendered unemployed or are seeing challenges securing jobs.
How did hoolah enter the picture and helped Caring Skin, even amidst the pandemic?
The trend of Buy Now, Pay Later was getting popular in 2020 during the pandemic and we were exploring to work with suitable partners. The team that approached us was very efficient and friendly, we turned down other offers and only work with hoolah.
Since we specialise in treating acne and sensitive skin problems, our clientele is usually pretty young, say between 18 to 28 years old.
Most of them have lesser spending power while at the same time very open to trying new models of payment. hoolah allows our young customers to pay installments which make it easier for them to make their purchases.
So, hoolah has been a great help with our sales! We have found that as more customers are able to afford to pay for installments, we are seeing some successes in terms of closing rates.
“With hoolah, we have noticed a 10-15% increase in our closing rate. ”
Subrina Liew, founder of Caring Skin on the brand’s success after joining hoolah.
All images courtesy of Caring Skin.
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