The founder of The First Refresh wants to bring beauty services to people in Singapore while making sustainable, flexible work a reality for all of its beauty consultants
How I’m Making It is a weekly series in which Tatler speaks to influential individuals about their unique journeys and what keeps them going.
It is undeniable that Singaporeans enjoy getting pampered and treating themselves to grooming and beauty services. Despite this, mobile beauty spas have yet to become the norm in Singapore. Most of us find ourselves having to make time to visit the salon for various needs such as getting our nails fixed or a new set of eyelash extensions. However, there are local businesses that are beginning to offer on-demand beauty services for the busy urbanite or just anyone who’d prefer to stay home to save a bit of time. One such business is The First Refresh, a mobile beauty studio that offers beauty treatments for brows, nails, lashes and more.
Singaporean lawyer-turned-entrepreneur Rachael Kam was inspired to start the business slightly after the circuit breaker last year.
“The idea was triggered then as I thought there was a better way to manage [on-demand beauty services]. There was a demand for this but no platform for people to find well-qualified consultants,” Kam shared.
The First Refresh has a collective of beauty consultants (some of whom have over 10 years of experience) who travel around the island to work with clients in the comfort of their homes. Customers can sign up for its flexible #BetterBeauty Subscription service, where they get to pick from a wide selection of services such as manicures and pedicures, lash lifts, facials and even haircuts. There are different subscription packages (from $75 to $395 per month) depending on customers’ needs.
“With the ongoing pandemic, we have found that a growing number of consumers are moving towards doing their beauty services in the comfort of home for two main reasons: reduced exposure to Covid-19 and the convenience of not having to leave your home,” Kam said.
However, beyond providing beauty aficionados with the luxury of receiving beauty services at home, Kam shared that the company’s main vision is to provide flexible work to women.
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“As a company, making sustainable, flexible work a reality for all of our beauty consultants is our goal,” Kam said. “As a mother myself, I have seen how flexible work opportunities would have benefitted countless women around me who are incredibly talented but had somehow been forced to make a choice between full time work and their family.”
She continued: “I've always thought this should never be mutually exclusive and having the opportunity to work to prove that every day with The First Refresh has been nothing short of a privilege.”
However, being an entrepreneur has its fair share of challenges and hardships—something Kam is aware of. In fact, The First Refresh isn’t her first business. She started Lucy & Mui, an e-commerce fine jewellery company, six years ago while she still held a full-time job. And it was through this business where she faced one of her biggest failures back in 2015 when she was pregnant with her first child. Due to a mistake of routing a huge volume of orders to a new set of craftsmen, she received items that “were often in the wrong ring size, wrong gold colour, set with the wrong stone or arrived days late”.
Reflecting on her experience, Kam shared: “I took away two key lessons from that: operations and supply that work is one of the most valuable things to a business and many things are out of my control—I just have to do the best I can.”
She added that one of the best pieces of advice she’s ever received is that there’s never a good time to take the plunge into full-time entrepreneurship.
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“As I delved headfirst into running The First Refresh, I soon realised that without it being a full-time gig, I wouldn’t be able to keep up. For the first three months, I was working non-stop seven days a week. Heeding this piece of advice has kept me sane,” Kam revealed.
Below, find out how the mother-of-two manages her business while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.