You see my symptoms back then were just puffiness…but chronic puffiness….the kind where my eyes swelled up like golf balls after a good cry/ allergy season/ late nights and I looked awful for days! I even tried ice, tea bags, cucumber slices and frozen peas…all of which did not work.

By an act of serendipty, a chance meeting with a manufacturer led me onto the discovery of a unique technology at the Council for Scientific Industrial Research Polymers Department. They had engineered an exciting polymer technology dermal delivery system ( a method of delivering ingredients into the skin) for the application originally for burns and wounds.

The technology was unique and had applications in the cosmetics and veterinary industries as well. The first samples that came out of their laboratory for my hi-tech cucumber slice, had potential and I negotiated an exclusive license agreement for the technology. ​Unfortunately the technology was only developed to laboratory scale and had no method of manufacture either.

On the 10 year journey of development, I faced enormous trials and obstacles trying to take the technology from concept to commercialisation. All the scientists who had worked on the technology initially had left the country, and no one was able to assist me in completing the research & development, engineering the manufacturing processes or crossing the major technology and innovation chasms along the way.