It started in a kitchen.

1. Unemployed, dealing with hormonal cystic acne, and done spending money on drugstore products that weren't working. I started making my own — clay masks, rose water toners, face oils. Simple, vegan, all-natural formulations from scratch. What began as a personal fix became something friends wanted. Then strangers. Then a brand.

The brand came naturally after that. I designed the logo, wrote the story, built the website, created the packaging, shot the content, ran the socials. The name — The Mineraw — came from mineral + raw. Everything it looked and felt like was intentional: minimal aesthetic, no-fuss philosophy, honest ingredient lists. Raw, simple, real. Made for people like me who had skin concerns and didn't have the budget for luxury skincare.

Before "clean beauty" was everywhere, before vegan was mainstream, The Mineraw had found its people.

The Instagram grew to 28,000 followers organically — no paid growth strategy, just consistent content and a community that kept coming back. Products sold out in batches faster than I could make them. I moved production to a contracted factory, expanded into retail stores across KL, ran pop-up booths, and managed operations, packaging, customer service, and logistics alongside it all. No team for the first three years. One person. One brand.

Profitable within the first month. At its peak, the business was valued at RM 1 million.

COVID sent online sales through the roof — 10 to 15 orders a day, even while I was operating abroad. What followed was harder: demand dropped, competition increased, and five years of running everything solo had taken its toll. When a friend offered to buy the brand instead of watching me wind it down, I said yes. RM5K to RM1M. Five years. Clean exit.