Dr Parushinee Naidoo is the founder of Skin Solutions Aesthetic Clinic which has practices in Umhlanga and Ballito.

Skin Solutions is renowned for bringing internationally acclaimed medical grade treatments to the shores of KwaZulu-Natal. They have introduced and found ways to combine African botanicals with the highest quality in medical aesthetics. In 2020, Parushinee developed her own skin care brand that combines African pharmaceuticals and botanicals with medical grade ingredients, focusing specifically on South African skin.

Parushinee also considers her clinics a hub of education and skin solutions as they offer mentorship programmes and education for doctors and therapists. The aim is to not only upscale their skill but improve the overall level of service in South Africa when it comes to the skin care industry.

Passion for connecting

Commenting on her journey, Parushinee says that founding Skin Solutions is based on her teenage years and being a young adult. She explained, “I struggled with debilitating acne growing up and I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I always had a passion for connecting with people and for helping people live their fullest lives. I think that studying medicine was marrying those two passions together.”

Although she added that becoming a mother is what made her take that step to opening her first Skin Solutions clinic. “I felt that I could not be encouraging my children to follow their dreams if I was not living my truth in following my own,” she explained.

Parushinee says that she takes inspiration from everywhere – including her kids, her mom, and from the girls that are a part of her clinic. “Everybody has something to share that can help you elevate yourself. I find that every day someone will inspire you in some way.”

Over the years, Parushinee’s journey has not been without both personal and professional challenges. She explained that from a professional point of view, being a young brown female in an industry where she was definitely the minority was extremely challenging. Parushinee struggled to figure out how she was going to make her mark in the aesthetic industry. However, she said, “It all came down to embracing what made me unique. I focused on finding ways to make myself relatable to my community and my patients.”

In addition, Parushinee focuses on providing quality service and the safest and most effective treatments. She strives to keep herself and her business authentic and real. From a personal point of view, Parushinee says the challenges she has had are the same as every woman out there. For her, that’s how to juggle all the roles of being a mom, an entrepreneur, a wife, a sister, and a mentor – something she is still working on.

In order to meet these challenges Parushinee focuses on her time management skills, completing one task at a time and giving it 100%, which has helped her. She added that she has also learned to delegate, which not only empowers the people around her, but makes time for the things that she can truly impact on.

Goal Driven

Parushinee says that she is very goal driven, and the recently opening of her clinic in Ballito has been exciting and positive. She added that the reception that that clinic has received has made her consider opening more clinics in the future.

“We have a massive following on social media and a lot of our followers are not in KZN so there are thoughts of going bigger or nationally with regards to our education platforms.” Parushinee would like to offer more mentorship programmes to grow her brand and to elevate the quality of the industry.

In guiding young people. she would say that there is no success without passion. “If you love what you do and you do it well, the rewards will just follow.” The other thing she recommends is to see the value of connecting with people, of building relationships and not just with people that you think can help you, but also with people that you are influencing and who you inspire. Parushinee added, ‘Irrespective of what industry you are in, how you have connected with people and how you make them feel will ultimately determine your success.”

In addition, she stressed the importance of embracing technology within your industry to stay ahead of the curve and actually make an impact. Skin Solutions is proud to have achieved just that – combining African roots with international grade equipment and technologies to bring South African patients the best quality skin care.

Social Development

Skin Solutions is not only a local based skin care range, but they use the proceeds of the skin care range to partake in multiple social development projects. One of these, is that they participate in monthly drives to collect sanitary towels from their clients. In addition, a portion of proceeds from the Skin Solutions’ skin care range is used to purchase pads every month, all of which are distributed to different schools over the term. “I think that if you can get young girls to attend school on a regular basis, it will vastly impact the level of education,” said Parushinee.

“On a regular basis, we are very involved in the breast cancer awareness campaign, and we also support smaller initiatives in communities that are trying to uplift women and children.”

“I take the mentorship programmes very seriously,” commented Parushinee. “Because I feel if you are able to pay it forward in some way, you are elevating the whole community in which we are actually doing business.”

Parushinee said she was extremely surprised to be nominated as a KZN Top Business Women 2023 and humbled and honoured to know the work that she is doing is being recognised. “I really want to use the platform that this has created for me to build on the initiatives that I am doing personally, like the woman empowerment and mentorship. It’s so amazing.”