S1 EP15: The Woman Behind BIBA: Her Story, Her Strength, Her Spark (Season Finale)

I always knew I would never work for someone else. I had too much to offer to give it to another business, and I knew Hydie and I were going to go somewhere big together.

Why “Biba”? My name is Biba. I couldn’t think of anything that fit better. The original logo had the slogan “Best In Beauty Aesthetics” underneath, which spells B.I.B.A. It came off the current logo because at this point, everyone knows we’re the best. I wanted my name to be part of my business. My face is the face of the clinic. I wanted it to be mine.

The vision was never just treatments. It was experience. I had worked in a big chain clinic before I opened my own, and it felt like a production line. I wanted the opposite. I wanted people walking into the clinic to feel welcomed, cared for, and like their hour with us was a genuine escape from reality. Around 90% of our clients are mothers, and mothers tend to neglect themselves constantly. I wanted a space where a mum could come in for her skin, her face, her body, even her intimate wellness, and leave feeling like a human again.

I remember every single thing about my clients. If I haven’t seen someone in three years, I’ll still ask how their dog’s surgery went. Clients message me when they get divorced, when they’re having a tough week, when something exciting happens. That relationship is the whole product. The treatments are the reason they come in. The relationship is why they stay.

The thing that actually pushed me to open the clinic was my son.

I became a single mum when he was five weeks old. The day after I left the marriage I was breastfeeding him on the couch and I picked up my phone to check the banking app. I asked my older brother to have a look because I couldn’t find the money. He sat with it for a bit, then got up, started pacing, and told me there was nothing in the account. Cleaned out.

My brother was angrier than I was. He kept saying “why are you not losing it?” and I just said, “what’s the point? I can’t change it now.” I looked at my son and I promised him, out loud, that by the time he turned four, I was going to have my own clinic. We were going to live a beautiful life. We were not going to need anyone, or their money, ever again.

I opened the clinic two weeks after his fourth birthday. The construction ran a little late (not my fault), but I kept the promise.

I’m a high achiever and I still have moments where I doubt myself, where I think I could have done more. Being a single mum building this business at the same time meant I missed milestones. His first steps. His first tooth. Those are the ones I don’t get back. But he has the life I promised him, and he has a mum who showed up, and that matters.

People assume my motivation is my son. He is. But honestly, the bigger day-to-day motivation is Hydie.

I’ve always wanted her to have a better life than I did, to achieve more than I achieve, to surpass me in every way. Even though she’s technically my sister, she feels like my first born. I was 12 when she was born and we’re the only two girls in a family full of boys. We didn’t grow up with money, and I promised myself before I ever promised my son that Hydie’s life was going to be better than mine.

I was having a conversation with my best friend the other day and she asked something about Hydie’s future and I said “I’m so glad I was the one who went through the hard marriage and the hard divorce. I’m glad all the bad things happened to me, not her.” Hydie was upset when she heard it. But I wouldn’t take any of it back if it meant keeping her safe from going through the same thing.

She motivates me every day. If she’s pushing herself, I can’t slow down. That’s the dynamic.

Honestly? Being a single mum.

If I didn’t have my son waiting at home, I’d work later, I’d work more days, I’d have picked Hydie up and opened shop in Switzerland. My son is my anchor. He has kept us in this country, kept my hours reasonable, and kept the rhythm manageable. I’m blessed that our mum has been so hands-on with him, because without her help I couldn’t have built the clinic the way I have.

It’s also created a slightly spoilt monster. Last week he casually told me that when we fly to Lebanon this year he’s travelling with me, not his dad, because his dad’s flight is economy and he’s not doing 27 hours in economy. He’s 10. He first flew business at eight. Obviously I built that. I work this hard specifically so he has a lifestyle I didn’t have growing up. I don’t regret it. I also know I need to keep him humble.

This comes up constantly, so let’s talk about it.

I got married and divorced by 25. I had a five-week-old baby when I left. We had only been married about three and a half years, and the short answer is: there was cheating.

I don’t hate him. He looked great on paper. The people around us thought he adored me. Honestly, I think on paper he was a good husband. But there were issues, and those issues meant he was sleeping with other people in his workplace. We were both shift workers, so there was a lot of time unaccounted for.

I think he ruined his own life, and I mean that without bitterness. We co-parent well. He shows up to our son’s soccer games. When we’re both at the same thing, we can be kind to each other for the sake of our son. That’s what’s meant to happen. And I genuinely believe that without the cheating, we still would have ended the marriage, because he couldn’t set boundaries with extended family and he wasn’t willing to put our little family first. That kind of dynamic breaks any relationship, regardless of race, religion or background.
After the divorce, my life got better. Not just a bit. Much better. I built an empire, I jet-setted, I started a whole new career. He and I live very different lives now. We were always going to want different things. I left the hospital ward and started doing aesthetic work specifically because I did not want to be doing night duty as a single mum with a newborn. I wanted to stop saving lives in an ER and start saving faces in a clinic I owned. That decision saved our life.

Divorce isn’t the worst thing in the world. How you bounce back is the whole thing. A lot of people choose an unhealthy route after divorce — the partying, the quick new relationship, the rebound. I chose the opposite. I’ve never introduced a man to my son. I’ve never brought anyone home. I refuse to raise my kid in a home that doesn’t feel safe, happy and full of love. That’s the only rule I’ve had for myself.

And for anyone reading this who is stuck in an unhappy marriage and telling themselves it’s for the kids: it is not for the kids. Children absorb energy. They feel unhappy parents. They hear the silence at the dinner table. What’s worse than a child going to sleep knowing their mum is crying in the next room? The “staying for the kids” story is the easy route. The real route is harder and then so much better.

There’s something about being the first in a family to do something.

I was the first woman in my immediate family and both sides of extended family to go to university, start a business, back myself. My auntie Donna was the first to go to uni, and she moved to Dubai, so I didn’t have her close by to model anything. I didn’t have anyone near me to look up to. Business ownership was not something we grew up around. My parents worked hard but not in a way that involved building an empire from zero.

When I got divorced and moved back home, I had no money. I went back to a retail job I’d worked in while at uni, as a registered nurse with years of experience in stroke and neurology. I didn’t care. I wasn’t embarrassed. I’d pump my breast milk on my break, or my mum would bring my son in and I’d breastfeed him in the back room between shifts. That was my life, and I kept showing up because the bigger picture was bigger than my ego.

When people see our siblings now — all successful, a few of my brothers have built lives in Dubai, all of us are driven — they think we had it easy, or that it was handed to us. Nothing was handed to us. We come from parents who didn’t go to uni, who raised a lot of kids without a lot of money, and we all just decided to work hard. Everyone has their undiagnosed, deep-rooted stuff. The difference is in what you do with it.

I was determined to be the person my younger siblings and my son could look up to. My line was always: I’m going to be that woman I never had the chance to idolise growing up. And now people look up to us, and honestly, that feels more accomplished than anything I’ve ever bought myself.

Season two is coming and we are not slowing down.

The clinic is my day one baby, and I will keep growing that forever. The podcast is the project I’ve been wanting to do for years and kept shelving because I told myself I would do it when I was less busy. The truth is I will never be less busy, so we made the time. It has taken more behind the scenes than I ever expected, but I love every moment of it, and I know what this platform is going to turn into.

We’ve also got some bigger projects in the background that are going to take a bit of time. Nothing big happens fast. You’ll know when they’re ready. I’ll scream it.

To everyone who tuned in for season one, thank you. This was a long time coming, and the community we’ve grown already is more than we expected. Season two is going to be a madness. We love you all. Don’t forget to subscribe, like and follow so we can keep bringing you greatness every week.

We’ll see you next Wednesday. Bye!