Ms Yvette Chiang - Rustic Nirvana

MS YVETTE CHIANG, 36, founder and director of Rustic Nirvana (below right), does not like Sundays, when her spa outlets are closed. If she had her way, she would be at her office working on her number one passion - wellness.

Since opening its doors in 2001, Rustic Nirvana has captured close to 3 per cent of the market share of the local spa and beauty industry.

In 2005, it became the first and only spa to provide post-natal recovery services at Gleneagles Hospital, and the company became a household name after television celebrity Zoe Tay swore by its post-natal programmes.

Rustic Nirvana's self-developed techniques using hand tools and a mix of Asian herbs and ingredients have resulted in an original 'Singapore Spa' experience. It has represented the nation at overseas trade shows and seminars.

Rustic Nirvana came about after Ms Chiang quit her job to focus on her family. She experimented on a Chinese-Malay concoction that not only helped her to conceive, but also helped her to recover her health and shed a 26kg weight gain from the pregnancy.

Conventionally, spas do not provide curative treatments. However, Ms Chiang believes that people will appreciate a spa that provides this on top of the usual relaxation and beauty treatments.

To do this, she unearths traditional remedies and improves on them before offering them to customers. She tweaks and tests the treatments on herself with the help of her assistants.

"Our signature Chopstick Massage is actually something I learnt from my grandmother," Ms Chiang says. "It may sound simple to hit with a bunch of chopsticks, but too few sticks of the wrong design and you end up with blood clots.

"My greatest satisfaction comes when an ailing customer leaves our outlet cured and relieved."

Helping people ease their woes is so much a part of Ms Chiang's business that it shapes the way she hires her staff. With the exception of its Malaysian outlet, almost all the therapists at Rustic Nirvana were hired through internal referrals.

"I prefer to hire those who really need a job - single mothers, housewives with no income, women with a burning passion for homeopathy," Ms Chiang says.

Never the kind to boss people around, Ms Chiang goes to work each day in her uniform so she can chip in when it gets busy. She empties the trash and washes the toilet, training the new assistants by setting an example herself.

"I prefer people to listen to me because they want to, not because they have to," she says.

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