SHE is offering free facials for people who have been retrenched, because she knows what being jobless is like.

Glow International Beauty Spa director Lily Kew, 38, said that those who want to have the free facial have to make an appointment and produce documents proving that they were recently retrenched.

'Our objective is to help these people get back on track. They may be feeling down or depressed, and a facial can give them positive energy before they go for a job interview,' Ms Kew said, adding that each facial treatment is worth more than $100.

She said she has not set a time frame for this promotion, as it will depend on when the economy recovers.

Ms Kew said she was compelled to act.

'There is so much bad news in the papers nowadays. So 'cham' (Hokkien for tragic). I felt I had to do something,' she said.

'I know what it felt like (to be) without a job and the need for survival. It was really hard.'

When she was 19, Ms Kew dropped out of university after four months and signed up for a beauty course with a local beauty school.

She said: 'I had skin problems since I was 14, and went to see (so many) doctors and beauticians, but my problems remained. I wanted to see if I could heal my skin on my own.'

As the top student at beauty school, she was given the opportunity to enrol with the well-regarded Dominelli International College of Esthetics in Vancouver, Canada.

She dug into her savings and borrowed money from her parents to pay for the $14,000, 18-month course, which started in July 2000.

She emerged tops when the course ended in 2002, she said.

But during that period, after the dot-com bubble burst and the 9/11 attacks, Ms Kew could not find work in Vancouver after completing her studies. She said she had started looking for jobs in 2001 even before graduation.

She said employers then had changed their mindsets towards hiring foreigners.

She was too expensive

'There weren't enough jobs to go around, and they didn't want to pay for foreigners. They said that I was too expensive,' she recounted.

Despite attending countless interviews, she did not get a job.

In order to survive, she ate cheap doughnuts and bought cheap clothes at wholesale stores there.

To keep from starving, she offered freelance facial services to several hotels. She did not even call her family in order to save money.

Looking back, Ms Kew said she nearly sank into depression.

Discouraged and disappointed, she returned to Singapore at the end of 2002 after more than one year of fruitless job hunting.

She got a job here as a beauty therapist and later, became a spa manager.

But then the Sars epidemic hit in 2003 and Ms Kew had to take a pay cut and then go on no-pay leave. She eventually quit.

She found another job in a beauty product and equipment firm, training beauty salon owners and spa therapists.

In 2004, things started to turn better for her. She ran a spa with several partners and business expanded to a second outlet. In 2006, after she sold the business, she set up yet another spa on Craig Road in Tanjong Pagar.

Has her business been hit by the current downturn?

Ms Kew said there was a dip in September and October, but business seemed to have recovered last month.

When asked if she would retrench employees during the economic slowdown, Ms Kew said her business had not been affected badly and she had not thought about what would happen if things worsened.

For now, she will conduct more training for her 12 employees, and source for new treatments and technology.

She said: 'I've learnt that there's no point sitting around and lamenting. It's better to do something about your situation.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on December 9, 2008.