Twice a week, Grace Lee blends lotions and potions by hand in a room in her extended family’s spare flat.
In her makeshift laboratory, she makes body moisturisers and some face products, bottling them all herself to retail under her conscious bodycare brand, Honest & Gentle.
One batch takes up to four hours to make, but it is worthwhile labour for the 27-year-old.
After working in retail and the fast-moving consumer goods industry for four years, she felt burnt out and sought more meaning in her work.
“My work then was very profit-driven. I didn’t see the impact it had on communities,” says the communications graduate from Nanyang Technological University.