Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

“The pur­pose of life, af­ter all, is to live it, to taste ex­pe­ri­ence to the ut­most, to reach out ea­ger­ly and with­out fear for new­er and rich­er ex­pe­ri­ence.”

–Eleanor Roo­sevelt

Cel­e­brat­ing 20 years as a den­tal sur­geon, a proud grad­u­ate of St Stephen’s Col­lege, Princes Town, Dr Car­o­line Singh fear­less­ly ex­pand­ed her port­fo­lio and al­lowed life ex­pe­ri­ences to en­rich and guide her en­tre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney.

Fol­low­ing her pas­sion for beau­ty and fash­ion, Dr Singh de­cid­ed to chan­nel her an­a­lyt­i­cal sci­ence back­ground and cre­ativ­i­ty in­to the for­mu­la­tion of a suc­cess­ful skin­care brand, But­tered Up in 2015. Pow­ered by plant and fruit ex­tracts that were gen­tle, yet ef­fec­tive in treat­ing com­mon skin­care con­di­tions, the brand is now avail­able across the Caribbean.

Over ten years ago, af­ter she ex­pe­ri­enced adult ac­ne and frus­tra­tion in try­ing sev­er­al skin­care lines and rec­om­mend­ed spa treat­ments with no suc­cess, the need for a more nat­ur­al ap­proach was birthed. On her trav­els, Dr Singh ob­tained skin­care prod­ucts with few­er chem­i­cals and nat­ur­al in­gre­di­ents as the base, which re­sult­ed in the de­sired im­prove­ments in her ac­ne. Her en­tre­pre­neur­ial ap­petite kicked in.

“I re­alised there was a void then in the mar­ket for qual­i­ty lo­cal skin­care prod­ucts and I re­searched sev­er­al op­tions. My friends al­so be­came part of my fo­cused mar­ket group, along with pro­fes­sion­als trained in skin­care for­mu­la­tions. I re­alised every­one had some skin­care con­cern and so­lu­tions were need­ed, Singh said.

“Now, But­tered Up has ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 prod­ucts for face, body, and hair in­clud­ing es­sen­tial oils, fa­cial cleansers, fa­cial scrubs, ton­ers, sham­poo, body but­ter, and soaps with the re­as­sur­ance of no parabens or formalde­hyde and wide­ly avail­able across T&T. Ex­pand­ing through­out the re­gion, But­tered Up is al­so re­tailed at EC Make­up Bar in Kingston, Ja­maica.”

Dr Singh shared that with these suc­cess­es, there was a fair share of hic­cups and dif­fi­cul­ties along the way. But she added that “one must en­joy the up­ward jour­ney, cog­nisant of the fact that there will be chal­lenges. The ob­sta­cles are in­evitable, they make you stronger. I be­lieve that we must not set­tle for medi­oc­rity but have the hunger to pur­sue our dreams with ex­cel­lence.”

In­no­v­a­tive steps that pro­pelled a lo­cal brand

A lo­cal brand that stood the test of time, strate­gic in­no­va­tions al­lowed her brand to grow, even dur­ing the COVID-19 pe­ri­od.

“We re­alised, with spas be­ing closed for a sig­nif­i­cant pe­ri­od, per­sons were pressed to try at-home fa­cials, DIY masks, and at-home skin­care rou­tines. We pro­vid­ed on­line op­tions and sales con­tin­ued de­spite stores be­ing closed. That led to the de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try’s first skin­care mix­ing bar, launched in 2021, a space where you can vis­it, cre­ate and cus­tomise body prod­ucts to your lik­ing. Vis­i­tors at our mix­ing bar are wowed by the con­cept of cre­at­ing their own prod­ucts, adding their own scent to a body but­ter or show­er gel, adding an ex­tract to make their body scrub more ef­fec­tive, or sim­ply sit­ting and ap­pre­ci­at­ing the aro­mas … Cre­at­ed by two, me and you!” Dr Singh ex­cit­ed­ly shared.

Now more than ever with the in­creased cost of liv­ing, Dr Singh en­cour­aged peo­ple to be for­ward-think­ing and think out­side of the box.

“Take that bold step and dive in­to more fields that would not on­ly sup­ple­ment your in­come but would teach you life­long skills. The jour­ney was no easy one, it took a lot of sleep­less nights, at­tend­ing many mar­kets, and de­liv­er­ing to re­tail­ers af­ter work­ing at my den­tal prac­tice. 

“Not for­get­ting, wak­ing up on Sun­days at 5 am to ex­hib­it in the lo­cal up-mar­kets, an­swer­ing on­line mes­sages from 6 am till I go to bed, deal­ing with de­lays in ship­ping and clear­ing of raw ma­te­ri­als, un­avail­abil­i­ty of pack­ag­ing when we need, the list of chal­lenges goes on, but it is all worth it! To­day I feel proud of my achieve­ments!”

Her ad­vice to young en­tre­pre­neurs

“I en­cour­age young per­sons to learn as many skills as pos­si­ble, do not be con­ven­tion­al. Whilst it is im­por­tant to have a ter­tiary lev­el ed­u­ca­tion it is not nec­es­sar­i­ly go­ing to find you that dream job. We need to build our own em­pires.”

• Per­se­vere, don’t give up, and gain your fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence!

• Sup­port and col­lab­o­rate with oth­er en­tre­pre­neurs!

• Do your mar­ket re­search!

• Be will­ing to work hard!

• Be brave and bold!