Lead Editor–Newsgathering
ryan.bachoo@cnc3.co.tt
Linda Bhagwandass-Gobin has spent her career in beauty therapy, but it’s been more than facials and skincare; it’s been a lifelong journey of helping others understand that beauty is subjective and is a choice of embracing oneself.
Her recently published memoir details the first half of her life, “growing up by the seaside, shadowed by hopelessness and unspoken pain, to the glittering runways of fashion and the creation of a thriving beauty enterprise”.
She travelled to London in 1980 to be a fashion model. Instead, she discovered that it was not a lifestyle career and decided to study beauty therapy after she graduated from fashion modelling. Upon her return home, she would help her mother in a variety store. However, it wasn’t her calling. Instead, she would dive into beauty therapy, working with a business at Gulf City Mall. She became very popular among her customers.
But when the owners of the business cut her commission, Bhagwandass-Gobin cut ties with them and started her own business called Face and Body Clinic Limited. It was sold in 2010, but it was the catalyst by which Bhagwandass-Gobin built her life. It wasn’t without its challenges.
In the 80s, phones weren’t as accessible as they are now, and her clientele weren’t really sure where she moved to and how they could get to her. A year after opening her business, it flooded after rainfall. She was forced to close for two weeks, which dealt a blow to her start-up and the finances she injected into it.
However, together with her sister and brother, she went from one branch in south Trinidad to another at the T&T Chamber’s building in Westmoorings and another in Tobago.
“There was always my sister there to help me, so I felt like I never carried the burden all alone. We had challenges with flooding. We had two floods at Cross Crossing. We actually had two after. We had one in 1985, and then we had one in 1992.”
She would later take her business with her to the United States, to the states of Massachusetts and Florida.
Her memoir, titled Shaped by Hope, is based on the first half of her life, detailing the struggles but also how she was able to persevere towards success. She explained, “I wanted to write it to explain to people, this is my life. This is how I grew up. This is what happened, what pushed me: my faith, my resilience. I just wanted people to know that if you have unshakeable hope and faith, you can do this, and God restores. It’s just a wonderful journey. There’s a lot of hardship, but it’s based on, like, a generational strength coming from my grandmother and my mother.”
She further added, “I just want people to be encouraged by my book, my memoir. It’s the first half of my life with glimpses into the second. I just want them to know that they can be encouraged because we serve a true and living God.”
She admitted the idea of beauty has become more physical over time, and it’s something she has worked tirelessly to change. “It’s really not right. It’s really not right what it does to self-image. No, no, we can all age gracefully. This is why God made us like that. As we age, it is important that we take care of ourselves; we take care of our health, how we eat, we need to exercise. That doesn’t mean to say that you go out there and you get the injectables, or you try to starve yourself.”
Bhagwandass-Gobin acknowledged that self-confidence in the 21st century is also a major challenge.
She added, “We’re all blessed in different ways. We all don’t have the same facial structure or body shape, but we have to love what we have, and we have to use it to the best of our ability. Some people are just born with beautiful hair, or some people are born with beautiful skin or beautiful teeth.
“This is what I use my platform for. If you read my story, you would understand that I was always shy, and going out there just helped me to become bold and to know that this is what God has given me and to know that I’m blessed. People need to understand that we are blessed. We are blessed to have the features that God has given us.”
For a woman who has spent her life in beauty therapy, Bhagwandass-Gobin feels it goes deep under the surface of the skin, sometimes where you have to look deep within to see.
