Singapore’s story isn’t only built by the big institutions. It is also built by the people who open a shop, serve a customer, employ a team, and keep a business going through the years.
AHAVA Singapore has been part of that story for 18 years. It started when Ronnie Yeo returned from a trip to Israel and opened the first AHAVA store at Centrepoint. At its height, we had seven standalone stores and were carried in many Guardian pharmacies.
Then the economics of running a shop changed.
Rents went up. Staff costs followed “Because of rent and staff costs escalating, we had to shut them,” Ronnie says. “We maintained our original flagship store in Centrepoint until September 2024.”
We had a choice: increase our prices, or find a different way to reach our customers. We chose to go online. “Finally, to keep our customers happy and to keep prices affordable, we decided to take the brand totally online. This has worked well for us and our customers.
”The shopfront changed. What we brought through the door did not. The same formulations, made at the same Dead Sea laboratories, using the same minerals AHAVA has always been known for.
Today, we may no longer have a physical store for you to walk into. But we are still here, still bringing the goodness of the Dead Sea to Singapore. And perhaps that’s part of what building a nation looks like too. Things change. Businesses adapt. But the people behind them keep finding ways to move forward.
Ronnie is 76 now and still uses the products he started with 18 years ago. When asked what he hopes for the future, his answer is simple: “For the future, we want to continue bringing the goodness of the Dead Sea to Singaporeans.”
Eighteen years later, that hasn’t changed.
Happy 61st, Singapore.
Seven shops, and what happened to them.
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What Is Osmoter™ and Why Is It AHAVA's Hero Ingredient?
Most skincare brands have a hero ingredient. AHAVA has its own, made at the source. Osmoter™ is a concentrate derived directly from Dead Sea water. The real thing, extracted, stabilised, and calibrated to deliver the Dead Sea's mineral profile into living skin. The name comes from osmosis, the process by which substances move across a membrane, drawn by concentration gradients rather than force. Osmoter™ works the same way. Rather than sitting on the surface of skin, it helps minerals cross into it. What the Dead Sea actually contains The Dead Sea holds a mineral concentration of around 34%. The average ocean sits at roughly 3%. Water flows in from the Jordan River, and nothing flows out. Over millennia, that has produced the saltiest large body of water on Earth. Each mineral earns its place. Magnesium supports cellular repair and calms inflammation. Calcium contributes to the integrity of the skin barrier. Potassium governs the movement of water in and out of cells. Sodium supports the exchange mechanisms that keep skin hydrated and elastic. Osmoter™ concentrates all of this into a single ingredient. Where you'll find it The Crystal Osmoter™ X6 Serum is the purest dose of it you can buy. A lightweight serum that delivers concentrated Osmoter™ to visibly firm and plump skin over time. If you want to understand what the ingredient does, start here. The Osmoter™ Concentrate Illuminating Eye Serum brings the same concentrate to the eye area, where skin is thinner and more reactive. The Essential Day Moisturizer for Normal to Dry Skin makes Osmoter™ part of a daily routine without requiring a separate serum step. You'll find it across the bestselling range as well. It's the foundation of the range, and it always has been. How to layer it Cleanse first with the Silky Cleansing Foam. Follow with the Mineral Balancing Toning Water. Apply the serum while skin is still slightly damp. Seal with moisturiser. The order matters because Osmoter™ works best when it has a clear path in. Why it's different AHAVA was founded at the Dead Sea in 1988 and remains the only cosmetics company with facilities built directly on its banks. Osmoter™ is made there, from the source, and has been for nearly four decades. That is what makes it different. Not the marketing. The address.
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The Man Who Brought the Dead Sea to Singapore
Eighteen years ago, on a tour through Israel, Ronnie Yeo walked into the Qumran caves as a traveller and walked out with an assignment he hadn't asked for. "When I was in the Qumran caves, the Lord told me, audibly, to bring AHAVA to Singapore," he says. "I obeyed." There was no business plan behind it and no market-entry strategy, only a conviction he couldn't quite explain and wouldn't ignore. He came home, and not long after, opened the first AHAVA flagship at Centrepoint. Seven stores, and the harder decision The climb that followed was anything but straight. At its height, AHAVA Singapore ran seven standalone stores and sat on the shelves of most Guardian pharmacies across the island. For a while, that felt like the shape of things to come. Then rent began to climb, staffing costs followed, and one by one the stores became harder to justify. Ronnie eventually made a decision that cost him something. He closed the standalone stores and held on to the original Centrepoint flagship, the first door he ever opened, keeping it running until September 2024. Then he did the harder thing and took AHAVA Singapore fully online. "To keep our customers happy, and to keep our prices fair, we decided to go completely online," he says. "It has worked well, for us and for them." There's a quieter kind of courage in that: knowing when to let go of the thing you built with your own hands so the thing you actually believe in can keep going. What keeps customers for eighteen years Ask Ronnie why customers are still with him and he doesn't talk about marketing. He talks about what's in the bottle. AHAVA's formulations are built on the Dead Sea's unusual mineral profile: magnesium, which helps calm stressed, reactive skin, and potassium, which regulates how skin holds on to moisture. For skin that lives through Singapore's heat and humidity, oily by noon and parched in air-conditioning by three, that combination isn't a slogan. It's the reason a tired, unbalanced complexion gradually starts to feel like itself again.The research behind those formulas is real and ongoing. AHAVA runs its own R&D arm at the Dead Sea, the Dead Sea Laboratories, and has spent years working with university researchers: an innovation laboratory at Shenkar College's chemical engineering department, clinical research with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and most recently a European Union research consortium developing safer, more sustainable cosmetic ingredients. "There is much research behind these products, and we keep improving them," Ronnie says. "That is what keeps our customers happy, and coming back." The proof is the man The most convincing testimony, in the end, is Ronnie himself. At 76, he still uses AHAVA every single day, largely the same products he started with. The Men's Exfoliating Cleansing Gel every evening, which suits his oily skin. The Mineral Shower Gel, which leaves a light protective veil rather than a sticky film. When he travels somewhere dry, the Mineral Body Lotion or Dermud Nourishing Body Cream goes in the bag to keep dry-skin itch at bay. The Mineral Shampoo travels with him too. "A 76-year-old man," he says, "with hardly any white hair." He isn't reading from a script. He's telling you what sits on his own bathroom shelf. The next eighteen years Eighteen years on, the ambition hasn't grown any more complicated than it was in the cave. "For the future, we want to keep bringing the goodness of the Dead Sea to Singaporeans," he says. Which is, more or less, the same conviction that stopped a man in his tracks all those years ago, still running quietly, one bottle at a time.
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Why Vegan Skincare Gives Up Nothing
There is a version of vegan skincare that arrives with a quiet asterisk. The packaging is considered, the ethos is sound, and yet somewhere at the back of your mind you find yourself wondering what was given up to get here. AHAVA has been vegan since 1988. Not because the market asked for it. In 1988, the market wasn't asking. Vegan formulation was simply consistent with the way the products were built from the beginning: start with what is natural, leave out what isn't needed. What vegan means inside a formula A vegan skincare product contains no animal-derived ingredients and is produced without animal testing. Everything else about the formula is decided by the formulator. Vegan status tells you what is absent. On its own, it tells you nothing about what the product can do. AHAVA's most powerful ingredient, Osmoter™, is mineral from start to finish. No ingredient taken from an animal could do what it does. The clinical record Every AHAVA product is dermatologist-tested. The Clineral PSO Body Cream delivers 130% increased hydration after 14 days. The Clineral TOPIC Shower & Bath Oil reduces skin itchiness by 48%. These are measured outcomes on tested skin, not marketing approximations. Vegan did not limit these results. The same philosophy that makes AHAVA vegan is the philosophy that makes the formulas work. The honest position When the foundation of a formula is Dead Sea minerals and clinical science, choosing vegan costs nothing. The only thing you give up is a list of ingredients you never needed in the first place.
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