“We have to develop our products to serve the premium market by using nanotechnology, as the overall market is highly competitive with the presence of global brands,” owner and managing director Siwapat Wangpol said during an interview with The Nation recently.

Siwapat, 27, started to produce skin cream in 2011 after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in law from Khon Kaen University and moving to Bangkok to study further with a view to becoming a barrister.

Her interest in skin cream began while studying at university, during which time she learned about all the products on the market, and the raw materials contained in each of them, before trying out her own formulations and testing which were best for her skin.

After graduating, she initially produced 500 packages, which she distributed free via her Facebookfan page and to her friends.

Half of the people then got back to her and asked to buy more of the skin cream, which led to initial sales of Bt2,000 per month.

This small but promising beginning inspired her to research and develop her products for wider sale, for which she used Bt10,000 of her savings before putting them on the market via her T&DFacebook page.

With sales then rising to an average of Bt10,000 per month, Siwapat decided to expand the operation through an investment of Bt150,000, some Bt50,000 of which was from her family and the remainder in the form of a loan of Bt100,000 from the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Bank of Thailand. She also applied to have her products licensed by the Food and Drug Administration.

After being granted a licence, she started to promote her creams and lotions by taking part in a trade fair conducted by the Commerce Ministry last year, which resulted in monthly sales shooting up to Bt100,000.

She then decided to open the Ziva Beauty Centre by T&D in Surin province in the Northeast last year.

This year’s focus is on joint R&D of nanotechnology for the T&D-branded range with the Thailand Research Fund, her target being to launch nanotech items that focus on the premium market and to distribute them via modern-trade outlets in 2017.