Queen of Beauty

From a modest background, Dr. Martha Tilaar has been helping women maintain their natural beauty since 1970 and has become a queen of beauty and a household name in Indonesia with millions of women using her skin care products and going to her spas throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. Many spas in Bali use her Biokos facial products as a standard.

I had admired this woman for many years and was very pleased she agreed to meet me for an interview while visiting her Eastern Garden Spa in Bali. I found her to be warm, friendly, charming and highly intelligent. As we sat sipping chlorophyll water and nibbling on dried fruits and almonds she told me her story.

Martha Tilaar was an elementary teacher when she first married. However, teachers’ salaries in Indonesia were very low, and her husband told her that she should become an entrepreneur to make more money. He had been granted a scholarship to study in the USA but they didn’t have enough money for her to join him the first year.

Living in the embassy area of Jakarta, she advertised being a teacher offering to babysit for children of employees of the embassies and was able to save money to join her husband a year later. While living in the USA she attended the Academy of Beauty Culture in Bloomington, Indiana and when they returned to Jakarta, she started a small salon in her parent’s garage in 1970. Living in an area with many embassies, she created some fliers and had them distributed to the embassies, advertising herself as an American-trained beauty therapist using international products. Very quickly, she developed a large following of ambassador’s wives. She began experimenting with herbal products and shared them with her clients.

Realizing that Asian skin was different she started looking for local products that could be used on her local clients, helped by her grandmother who made herbal medicine. At that time, the population of Indonesia was 150 million, of which 50% were female, so she had the idea to study the traditional Javanese beauty secrets and develop cosmetic and skin products that were suitable for Asian women. She went to Yogyakarta and Solo in Central Java and gained permission to study at the kraton (palace). In 1976 she formed a partnership with a woman from the kraton and began to create skin care products. Very quickly the business became successful, but the partnership split apart a year later.

In 1977 she formed a new partnership with Kalbe Farma, a large pharmaceutical company in Jakarta to create products for Asian women using natural ingredients that were plant-based. From her modest beginning, her company has grown into a world-class beauty product supplier making billions of dollars both domestically and internationally. Forty years ago she established the Martha Tilaar Group, which started with one employee and now has over 4,000 employees. In 2010 she received the Global Compact Award from the United Nations in New York.

She has created a unique holistic concept using centuries old eastern traditions. All Indonesian women have heard of Sari Ayu skin care and cosmetic products, which are found in supermarkets, many apoteks and now minimarts. A higher end product is Biokos, with a range of products for people aged 20 plus, 30 plus and 40 plus. Botu-like is used for mature skin. She now has a new product range called Derma Bright for mature skin in beautiful silver packaging. Biokos products are available in supermarkets, some apoteks, beauty suppliers and Eastern Garden Martha Tilaar Spa in Seminyak.

As we chatted she told me why she had opened a large spa school in 2004 in Bali. Previously in Hong Kong she was walking down the street when she heard her name being called by a pretty 16 year old Indonesian girl. She stopped to talk to the girl who told her that she had been taken as a child prostitute and brought to Hong Kong to work and was given Martha Tilaar products to keep herself pretty. Sadly, the girl had contracted HIV and has since died. Martha was so moved by this girl’s story that she decided she wanted to help young, poor Indonesian girls from being seduced into the human trafficking trade. Her staff goes out into small villages throughout Java recruiting girls by providing training to become a spa practitioner, accommodation and food for three months at the spa school in Kuta, Bali. After they complete their training they are given jobs in one of her many spas. In the past ten years 1,500 girls have received training at the school.

Dr. Tilaar invited me to join her for a visit to the school in Kuta that afternoon. As we entered, smiling girls holding frangipani flower leis greeted us and placed lei around both of our necks. Slowly walking down the long corridor a line of sixty smiling girls dressed in blue uniforms sang and bowed. Smiling, Martha went to each girl and touched their hands as she passed along the column greeting some of the girls by name. The love emitting from the girls in the large room was powerful. They were so grateful to be given the opportunity of being taken care of and educated in a valuable skill they could use the rest of their lives to help themselves and their family. I was deeply touched by the genuine love the students showed Dr. Tilaar. Traditional spa treatments are available in specially set up rooms at the enormous school and performed by senior staff for a very reasonable price.

Today, Eastern Garden Martha Tilaar Spas are the largest chain of spas within Southeast Asia with over forty franchises and ten personally owned. In Seminyak, the spa is a fusion of traditional Asian treatments and cutting edge technology of Prognos vitality diagnosis and vitality hydro massage performed by highly skilled practitioners.
T: 361-731648 Jalan Camplung Tanduk 5A.
W: www.marthatilaarspa.com

Copyright spa inspirations 2015
For clinics and spas offering new treatments
contact me for an upcoming story.
Spa.inspirations@gmail.com
You can read all past articles of Beauty & Health at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz