Malaysia Success

The beauty of success

RACHAEL PHILIP

It had not always been a bed of roses for Ginvera founder Dr Tor Lam Huat but he finally found the right formula. Now, he tells RACHAEL PHILIP, it’s time to take a new direction

HE’S a 70-year-old with the firm, healthy skin of a much younger man. His secret? Exfoliating... twice a day! Dr Tor Lam Huat, chairman of Singaporean skincare company Ginvera, swears by exfoliation.

“In order to maintain beautiful skin all you have to do is exfoliate regularly, not just once a week. Exfoliating removes dead skin cells and promotes good circulation of blood and oxygen,” he explains.

“When your skin is clogged with dead cells, whatever you apply on it will have a tough time penetrating your skin,” he adds.

But won’t scrubbing your face twice a day or everyday for that matter leave your skin dry and tender?

“Not with our products,” says Tor confidently. He adds that all Ginvera products, especially the popular Bio-essence line and now the new Spa Professional range, are created with this in mind.

The lovely smelling Spa Professional range comes with extracts of rose essence, lavender, chamomile and sandalwood. All are carefully chosen, either for hypoallergenic or anti-bacterial properties.

The new medium-priced range moves away from the Ginvera and Bio-essence ranges sold on supermarket shelves and instead, sits on counters in departmental stores and is targetted at those aged 30 and above.

“The economic crisis is proving to be a good opportunity for us to grab customers who want to downgrade slightly from premium brands,” says Tor’s son Jackie, who is the managing director.

Ginvera started out as a two-product skincare brand with big plans. Tor did not find daunting the thought of taking on giant multi-national corporations (MNCs). He subscribed to Confucian philosophies and applied Sun Tze’s The Art Of War to his business strategies.

He studied the market as well as his competitors thoroughly. He conceded that it was pointless to attack the MNCs head on.

“The products are basically the same. So I chose to compete on pricing,” he says of the early days.

In 1991, Tor came up with his theory of dead skin cells. In it he expounded that dead skin cells were the main culprit of almost all skin problems — from pimples and blackheads to dull, oily and dry skin to wrinkles and ageing skin.

Dead skin cells are automatically sloughed off, constantly. As we age, however, the surface of our skin does not efficiently shed these unwanted cells.

Daily exfoliation helps to clean and improve the surface of skin, making it more efficient in the excretion of wastes and toxins and the absorption of nutrients.

Tor worked hard to come up with a product that was not harsh when used frequently. In 1991, the Ginvera Marvel Gel was launched, with great success.

Besides Malaysia, Ginvera skincare and health products are sold in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Myanmar, Australia as well as New York. In Singapore, it is the fourth top seller after L’Oreal, Olay and Neutrogena.

Tor, who had dropped out of school to help his father in his provision shop, became a used car dealer and then a building contractor. Later, he became a distributor for Japanese-made calculators, cash registers and other electronic goods.

“It was tough selling these things. They moved so slowly. At that time, prices for electronic goods dropped and there were piracy problems.”

So Tor made a study of consumer products that moved faster. Skincare seemed to be flying off the shelves. In the early 80s he became the sole agent for a Taiwanese skincare product, Dearland.

Soon it was doing so well that the Taiwanese cut him off as a middle-man. Little did they know that Tor had put in a lot of effort to organise promotions and to entice customers with free gifts. All these helped to establish Dearland as a popular brand.

In 1985, he lost everything after Dearland was taken back. In addition, the facial wash Firlan which he created, did not sell too well and he was declared a bankrupt.

But Tor was determined not to give up. The following year, with a loan of S$5,000 from his family, he launched Ginvera Facial Foam and Body Shower Cream.

It seemed he had hit the right formula this time and soon, he opened a factory in Old Klang Road, Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia was also his first export country.

Today he operates out of a 150,000 sq ft office and factory lot in Sungai Chua, Kajang. An adjoining 5.5 acres of idle land awaits for Tor’s expansion plans.

Tor has five children and today, he is helped by Jackie who started in the company when he was 23 and daughter Vivienne who overlooks marketing and advertising.

Although inundated with work, Tor makes it a point to stay relaxed and to take everything in his stride. He exercises seriously and does either jogging, skipping, tai qi or roller blading everyday. The latter is something he has been doing for the last 30 years.

He fell down twice but quickly got up to continue whizzing through his neighbourhood and parks.

“I am glad to say that besides bruises, I didn’t break any bones”.