When Kelly Sullivan opened the About Face Aesthetics and Wellness clinic, she faced a saturated market, full of competition.

A business category that generates $100 billion a year in global revenue, encompasses 190 different Bermuda cosmetology businesses, including nail salons, tattoo parlours, barber shops, hotel spas and others.

Ms Sullivan is not bothered by the competition. She has an “abundance mindset”.

“Beauty is probably one of the biggest industries in the world,” she said. “There is always enough for everybody.”

“I go above and beyond for my clients,” she said. “Falling into the scarcity mindset can leave you feeling like you are in a deep hole. So, whenever I start to feel that way, I think, how can I up my game? Where can I do a bit better?”

One of the ways she is differentiating herself is by setting up an About Face beauty collective.

It provides beauty and wellness industry professionals with temporary work space to ply their trade.

She describes it as: “A collective of passionate and highly skilled practitioners, offering a spectrum of services and therapies across the beauty, aesthetic and wellness sector.”

“I am trying to help Bermudians and spouses of Bermudians,” she said.

People new to the industry can sign up to use one of the fully furnished treatment rooms at About Face at 1 Gorham Road in Hamilton. They work as independent contractors in a tiered system.

“Those who only need the room for 12 hours a week, pay one fee, while someone who might need it for 30 hours a week would pay more, and so on. The benefits to her client entrepreneurs include laundry service.

“It is great for someone who just wants to work part-time or is just starting out,” Ms Sullivan said.

She added: “I am about to add a second person who will do energy work such as reiki [a Japanese form of energy healing]. By the summer I hope to add three more people.”

When she started out, skincare was her passion but now she is becoming more and more interested in mentoring.

After training in 2010, she worked in Britain for five years and then left aesthetics for a time to do bartending.

“That got old quickly,” she said. “So I found a job in Bermuda in a spa.”

After four years she wanted to run her own business but it was hard finding a space to set up shop.

“Rents were crazy,” Ms Sullivan said.

A former dialysis centre, directly behind the Woodbourne Chemist, kept popping up while she searched for space.

“I kept thinking it was too big,” she said. “How would I fill it?”

Eventually, she bit the bullet and rented the place, thinking she would just get some employees. However, halfway through renovations, putting in new plumbing, flooring and wiring, the idea for the aesthetic collective came to her.

It was something that would have helped her at the start of her career.

“To begin with, I had been looking for a group of people I could just slide in with,” she said. “That plan fell through.”

Now that she is established, one of her biggest challenges is importing products for her business.

“The cost of shipping is ridiculous,” she said. “With anything you bring in, you are just paying so much in duty and shipping.”

She chalked that up to the price of living in paradise.

Ms Sullivan said she absorbed a lot of the shipping costs herself, because she wanted to keep her treatments accessible to those who need them.