Fay­ola K J Fras­er

In the qui­et vil­lage of Fe­lic­i­ty, cen­tral Trinidad, where the name it­self means “hap­pi­ness”, a young girl grew up ra­di­ant­ly op­ti­mistic, mir­ror­ing the essence of her vil­lage.

Sur­round­ed by faith and fam­i­ly, and bask­ing in the sim­ple joys of na­ture, she ab­sorbed a deep seren­i­ty that has stayed with her through­out her life. Al­though she hasn’t re­turned to Fe­lic­i­ty in over eight years, Za­li­na Wälch­li (nee Ali) car­ries its spir­it with­in her—a sense of joy, un­shake­able in the face of chal­lenges, a strong be­lief in nat­ur­al, home­o­path­ic heal­ing, and a phi­los­o­phy of life root­ed in bal­ance.

Wälch­li was raised in an en­tre­pre­neur­ial house­hold where cre­ativ­i­ty and self-suf­fi­cien­cy were ways of life. Her moth­er, a spir­i­tu­al woman with an Ayurvedic back­ground, cul­ti­vat­ed a home filled with herbal reme­dies. Herbs from the gar­den, like sage, thyme, aloe ve­ra, and hi­bis­cus, were used to treat ail­ments for their fam­i­ly of 10.

“We nev­er went to the doc­tor,” Wälch­li re­calls. “If you had a health prob­lem, you went to the gar­den. Every­thing we need­ed to heal was there.” These ear­ly ex­pe­ri­ences plant­ed the seeds of her life­long fas­ci­na­tion with holis­tic well­ness, and this foun­da­tion would lat­er be­come the cor­ner­stone of her ap­proach to beau­ty—heal­ing from the in­side out us­ing nat­ur­al prod­ucts.

Af­ter at­tend­ing Fe­lic­i­ty Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry and Cou­va Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary, Wälch­li en­tered the work­force as a lab tech for Petrotrin. Yet her cre­ative in­stincts and love for com­mu­ni­ca­tion soon led her back to her home­town, where she tran­si­tioned in­to pub­lic re­la­tions, ad­ver­tis­ing, and mar­ket­ing, si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pur­su­ing un­der­grad­u­ate stud­ies at UWI.

Around the same time, her pas­sion for health and move­ment blos­somed in­to a par­al­lel ca­reer as a fit­ness train­er, teach­ing aer­o­bics, strength train­ing, and pi­lates at var­i­ous gyms, a dis­ci­pline she had em­braced since the age of 17.

Mod­el­ling came nat­u­ral­ly. At 19, Wälch­li was pho­tographed at Great Race, spark­ing a ca­reer that saw her fea­tured in tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials, press ads, and fash­ion cam­paigns, in­clud­ing ap­pear­ing as the cov­er­girl on the BWIA Du­ty Free sign in 1997.

While build­ing her pres­ence in the beau­ty and well­ness space, a yearn­ing to see the world called to her. “I al­ways had big­ger dreams,” she says. “I want­ed to step out of the box and re­move my­self from my com­fort zone.”

Ear­ly pi­o­neer in dig­i­tal beau­ty re­tail

For Wälch­li, the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty be­came a sym­bol of free­dom and brav­ery. She be­gan vi­su­al­is­ing and man­i­fest­ing her move, even ar­rang­ing fundrais­ers to sup­port her dream of study­ing in the Unit­ed States.

Her am­bi­tion ma­te­ri­alised when, at 24, Wälch­li earned a par­tial schol­ar­ship and spon­sor­ship to at­tend Pace Uni­ver­si­ty in New York, where she pur­sued a de­gree in Man­age­ment In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems. Leav­ing home was dif­fi­cult, but life in New York proved trans­for­ma­tive.

“It was the be­gin­ning of my in­de­pen­dence,” she says. “I learned to sur­vive, to thrive, and tru­ly be­gan be­liev­ing in the pow­er of tim­ing.” Fol­low­ing her stud­ies, she worked at a me­dia com­pa­ny that spon­sored her and ap­plied for her green card, en­abling her to con­tin­ue liv­ing and work­ing in the US.

Even­tu­al­ly, love led her to Switzer­land, mark­ing a new chap­ter filled with both beau­ty and chal­lenges. Lan­guage bar­ri­ers, iso­la­tion from fam­i­ly and friends, and the loss of fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence test­ed her deeply. “It was one of the most dif­fi­cult times of my life. I lost my ca­reer and my self-worth,” she ad­mits.

Fo­cused on her young chil­dren, she be­came a house­wife, but in her search for pur­pose, she re­turned to her pas­sions, en­rolling in a top Swiss beau­ty school to be­come a make-up artist and hair­styl­ist. Her tal­ent and per­se­ver­ance quick­ly earned recog­ni­tion across Eu­rope, from Berlin fash­ion shoots to host­ing beau­ty work­shops where she show­cased min­i­mal­ist make-up and the art of high­light­ing nat­ur­al beau­ty.

In 2013, long be­fore nat­ur­al and or­gan­ic beau­ty brands were wide­ly sold on­line, Wälch­li launched her on­line beau­ty shop, be­com­ing an ear­ly pi­o­neer in dig­i­tal beau­ty re­tail. Lever­ag­ing her mar­ket­ing ex­per­tise, she har­nessed so­cial me­dia to pro­mote her prod­ucts at a time when it was still un­der­utilised.

Her first big sale val­i­dat­ed her in­stincts that peo­ple were crav­ing ease and qual­i­ty in the beau­ty space. Yet life soon test­ed her re­silience again: a trau­mat­ic sev­en-year di­vorce left her with­out fam­i­ly sup­port, fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty, or ac­cess to her chil­dren.

Dur­ing this deeply painful pe­ri­od, she turned in­ward, find­ing strength through spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and yo­ga, while div­ing head­first in­to build­ing and ex­pand­ing her busi­ness. “I start­ed for­mu­lat­ing skin­care like a mad sci­en­tist,” she laughs. “It was ther­a­py. It was my way of cop­ing and sur­viv­ing.”

Shin­ing a light on clean beau­ty

From this cru­cible of pain and re­new­al, com­bined with her back­ground in Ayurve­da, emerged Za­li­na Swiss Or­gan­ic—the mul­ti-award-win­ning brand root­ed in pu­ri­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and the be­lief that beau­ty is in­sep­a­ra­ble from well­ness. At a time when clean and nat­ur­al skin­care was not the norm, Wälch­li was a vi­sion­ary, work­ing tire­less­ly to find a man­u­fac­tur­er who shared her val­ues.

Her first prod­uct, Pris­tine, a fa­cial serum en­tire­ly nat­ur­al and free of ar­ti­fi­cial in­gre­di­ents, was de­vel­oped with a Swiss lab im­pressed by her for­mu­la­tion. “I want­ed to shine a light on clean beau­ty,” she says. “It wasn’t about cos­met­ics or cov­er­ing up im­per­fec­tions. I want­ed to make peo­ple feel ra­di­ant and com­fort­able in their skin.”

In­spired by the vi­bran­cy of the Caribbean and the min­i­mal­ism of Switzer­land, her prod­ucts are now sym­bols of au­then­tic­i­ty and em­pow­er­ment, earn­ing Me­dia’s Choice of the Year and the Eu­ro­pean Nat­ur­al Ex­cel­lence Award at the Eu­ro­pean Nat­ur­al Beau­ty Awards in Paris in 2025.

Wälch­li’s phi­los­o­phy is as spir­i­tu­al as it is sci­en­tif­ic. A cer­ti­fied health and yo­ga teacher and cos­met­ic sci­en­tist, she cham­pi­ons “in­side-out beau­ty”, a fu­sion of nu­tri­tion, mind­ful­ness, and skin­care. “No amount of make-up can hide what’s in­side,” she of­ten says. “If you don’t take care of the in­side, it will show ex­ter­nal­ly.”

Through her work, she con­tin­ues to chal­lenge con­ven­tion­al no­tions of beau­ty in an in­dus­try ob­sessed with per­fec­tion. A pub­lished au­thor, Wälch­li shared her holis­tic prin­ci­ples in Green Beau­ty De­mys­ti­fied, of­fer­ing the world in­sight in­to nat­ur­al, con­scious beau­ty prac­tices. The jour­ney has not been with­out ob­sta­cles. Con­vinc­ing oth­ers to be­lieve in her vi­sion and find­ing sup­pli­ers of 100 per cent nat­ur­al, sus­tain­able, and eth­i­cal­ly pro­duced raw ma­te­ri­als were among the ma­jor chal­lenges she over­came.

For young en­tre­pre­neurs, she ad­vis­es hav­ing a true pur­pose and un­der­stand­ing your “why”, as this sus­tains you when the jour­ney be­comes dif­fi­cult. She al­so em­pha­sis­es cu­rios­i­ty, dili­gence, and hard work as the keys to tan­gi­ble suc­cess.

As she pre­pares to host her “Fu­ture of Beau­ty” event in T&T in Jan­u­ary 2026, Za­li­na Wälch­li stands as a bea­con for women world­wide—proof that pur­pose can be born from pain, and heal­ing can come from with­in. Her life, span­ning con­ti­nents and cul­tures, em­bod­ies the time­less truth she learned in her moth­er’s gar­den in Fe­lic­i­ty: when re­spect­ed and un­der­stood, na­ture gives us every­thing we need to flour­ish.