From Malta To The Flower Curl®: The Yanika Cordina Story
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Laurene Rey-Millet
- 28th July 2021
- 5 minute read
Yanika Cordina is best-known for her Flower Curl® invention: the heatless hair-curling device, which provides a stress-free alternative to traditional salon styling. But, Yanika’s journey to success didn’t come easily.
Before moving to the UK, the inventor-to-be worked night shifts in a factory, because her dream of becoming a beauty therapist didn’t quite go to plan. But after getting itchy feet, she decided to move to the UK to pursue a more ambitious opportunity: modelling.
“When I left Malta, the plan was to get modelling jobs. But as soon as I landed in the UK, reality kicked in, and I was desperate for work, so I walked into Morrison’s, and I got a job as a checkout girl.”
Again, not quite what she had in mind. But in no time at all, Yanika embarked on some PA courses, and she climbed her way up the corporate ladder, from administrator to PA. But the money was starting to become a concern, and after being refused a pay rise, she decided to look for a weekend or an evening job, but that didn’t go to plan either.
But fear not. Yanika refused to give in, and she took fate into her own hands: ‘I started a pet sitting/dog walking business. I created a website, I set up some Google ads (I had no idea what I was doing), and the next day, I got my first customer! In no time, I was making more than 200 pounds per month.”
She was an entrepreneur in the making. Yanika would run her pet sitting and dog walking business before starting work at 9am, and after her work shifts in the evening, and at weekends. “I had no social life,” she said. The extra 200+ pounds a month funded the Flower Curl® product, and the Cordina Hair business.
Yanika’s first product (the Flower Curl®) took THREE YEARS to launch, and during this time, she continued to work full time as a PA, AND run her pet business. Exhausting. But she knew she was onto something, so she battled on through.
“I couldn’t wait to start testing it out, and that’s when I started to turn up to my office job with these curls, and my colleagues were complimenting me and asking me about it. Obviously, I couldn’t reveal too much. However, I knew that their feedback validated my idea.”
Next up: just three months after finally launching her hair-care business in 2017, Yanika discovered that she was pregnant. “That wasn’t part of the plan. Far from it. The first few years of my business was being pregnant, exhausted, nauseous, and ill, and then welcoming my baby boy, and looking after my new-born, and just transitioning into a mum.”
“I’m not gonna lie. It was hard, I never thought that running a business whilst being a mum would be this hard. How do people go to work whilst pregnant? I could not physically do anything. I was exhausted.”
Her hard work has not only paid off through the success of her business, but also with a ‘surreal’ appearance on BBC’s Dragon Den: “I had so much positive feedback after the show. It was an excellent experience for me.”
You can find out more about Cordina Hair here: https://www.cordina.co.uk
And don’t forget to check out the full video interview with Yanika below: