public source · not yet founder-confirmed · 2018-06 · 🇸🇬 Singapore · Beauty / skincare · founding team
Kitchen-made vegan skincare that became an Amazon bestseller
A Singapore founder left finance in 2014, put SGD 25,000 of savings into Handmade Heroes, sold at pop-up markets first, broke even within six months and later held the number-two spot in Amazon's lip-scrub bestsellers.
- Business
- Natural, vegan, cruelty-free skincare and lip care (Handmade Heroes)
- Founder
- Lynsey Lim, with husband Adi Ong on operations; Malaysian partners joined for the 2016 launch there
- Started
- 2014
- Start-up capital
- SGD 25,000 from the founder's personal savings (Hive Life, June 2018)
- Revenue
- not disclosed — the brand reports break-even within six months and a top-two Amazon lip-scrub ranking, no revenue figure
- Team
- Two-person operation until the 2017 Malaysian factory
Numbers are ranges or the figure the source published; we never publish a founder's documents.
Source, pinpointed
Hive Life — Handmade Heroes: from zero to hero (June 2018)
press profile · 2018-06
First customers — the part nobody publishes
Channel: Pop-up markets and word of mouth, then department stores and Amazon
“From grinding our own rice to making our own cocoa butter, all the products on offer are either made by myself or with my partner.”
Word of mouth and pop-up markets across Singapore in 2014, with products made in the founder's kitchen; department stores (Isetan, TANGS, Robinsons, Takashimaya) followed. Launched in Malaysia in November 2016 with local partners handling distribution, then a Malaysian factory in 2017. In the US the Ultra Sexy Lip Scrub reached number two on Amazon's best-selling lip-scrub list (Tatler Asia, April 2023). Halal-certified by Jakim; vegan and cruelty-free certified by PETA.
Would it work in…
The same idea, other markets — our read from the database's country filters, not a forecast.
- Kuala Lumpur — worked — the brand launched there in 2016 and manufactures there; halal certification was the door
- Bangkok — maybe — the market-stall start translates; Thai FDA cosmetic notification is the hurdle
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