After trying over 80 types of coloured contact lenses, 3 friends created their own brand to sell their designs

Would you wear contact lenses with tiny stars designed to resemble the sparkle of your eyes? This was one of the designs the three good friends who founded Heylens came up with when given carte blanche to create the coloured contact lenses of their dreams.

Mabel Koh is a 29-year-old engineer in the autonomous vehicle industry. Chua Hui Lin is a 29-year-old second-generation business owner of a logistics company. And Novita Lam is a 31-year-old influencer with more than 470,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok combined.

This star-embedded contact lenses are part of the Skyline Series of their newly launched brand Heylens.

“You know how some people edit an eye-catching beam into their eyes in photos? [This series] has two stars on top and one star at the bottom so that when you take selfies, it looks like you have sparkly eyes. It looks pretty natural,” said Koh.

They may work in completely different fields, but the three women have a common passion – they are coloured contact lens junkies. Between the three of them, they have tried more than 80 different coloured contact lenses, they told CNA Women. 

After sampling that many coloured contact lenses, they decided to create their own, launching three designs with colour variants – eight lenses in all – under the Skyline Series, a Cafe Series of browns, greys and green, and a Daily Essential Series with ultra-natural brown and grey for everyday wear.

FROM SHOPPING BUDDIES TO BUSINESS PARTNERS

In fact, Koh and Chua’s friendship story is interwoven with their contact lens addiction. The two Malaysians from Malacca met in secondary school at the age of 13 and became fast friends.

After secondary school, Koh came to Singapore to study in polytechnic and university, and work. She eventually became a Singapore permanent resident. Chua, on the other hand, studied in the United Kingdom and returned to Malaysia to help with her family business.

Though they live in two different countries, they remained close. “We kept calling each other almost every week to update each other on what’s going on in our lives. We just vibe. We share a lot of similarities and always think the same thing at the same time,” said Chua.

They also began to bulk-buy contact lenses together to enjoy discounts.

“Hui Lin was the pretty girl in school. And she was always trying different lenses. I always asked her what contact lenses she was wearing because I wanted to try it,” laughed Koh.

“Together, we have tried so many contact lenses of all designs,” Chua said, but they couldn’t pick a favourite among all their lenses. “I plan my contact lenses the way other people plan their outfits.”

Koh said: “There are different trends in different countries. In Thailand, contact lenses tend to be very enlarging and dark. Even if you choose a bright colour, it is only bright in the middle. So your eyes look very dollish.

“On the other hand, many Korean lenses have no ring [on their outer edge]. They just enhance your real eyes and give you this colour boom.”

But Koh wanted both: Natural colour and some enlarging effect. So when she found out about contact lens manufacturers, she thought: “Why not manufacture our own contact lenses?”

So in 2020, during the pandemic, Koh broached the business idea with Chua.  

CREATING THEIR DREAM LENSES

The two friends reached out to more than 10 contact lens manufacturers. “A lot of them just sent a catalogue of maybe 500 designs, and the minimum order quantity. I didn’t really enjoy this because I really want to design my lens,” Koh said.

Of these manufacturers, four to five factories sent samples to the duo, who tested them for colour and comfort. Ultimately, they picked their current manufacturer based in Daejeon, South Korea, because the company allowed them to design their own lenses and was the most accommodating to design tweaks.

“They also have proper licenses to back them up so that we could easily acquire the HSA (Health Sciences Authority) licenses in Singapore,” said Koh.

“Contact lens is a Class B medical device because you put it in your eyes. We had to find a warehouse and get a license to work with medical devices. Then, we had to apply for importer and wholesaler licenses, and work on product registration with HSA,” she added.

After sorting out product registration and finalising their eight different coloured lenses, the entrepreneurs realised they did not know how to market their product and could not afford to engage a marketing agency.

That was when Koh thought of Lam, a workout buddy she had known for a couple of years. A social media influencer in Singapore, Lam, a Singapore permanent resident, was frequently invited on press trips and often invited Koh as her plus one.

At one such press trip to Malaysia for the Good Vibes music festival, Koh gave Lam her first batch of Heylens contact lenses to try and asked her for marketing advice.

During the trip, the three women met at a cafe in Kuala Lumpur and instantly clicked. Lam, who was then working in a bank, had been about to leave her job to become a full-time content creator and thought the partnership would be a good opportunity. She agreed to join the business and began work on its branding and social media materials.

Chua, who is still based in Malaysia, suggested the brand name Heylens because she would drink Heytea whenever she came to Singapore.  

Lam and Koh began reaching out to optical shops in Singapore to persuade them to carry Heylens.

“It is a bit hard to close the deal because most of them are so used to working with big brands,” said Koh. But the women managed to convince several shops to carry Heylens in Singapore, and through Chua, they also work with influencers to market their lenses in Malaysia.

In September 2023, the trio launched Heylens, with five coloured contact lenses. The brand subsequently launched three more designs at their media event in May this year.

WORKING WITH BESTIES

To date, the brand has sold around 500 pairs of lenses and it has been a dream partnership, they said. Each pair of prescription coloured contact lenses costs S$30 and is available at these optical shops, as well as on the Heylens website.

“My parents told me not to work with friends,” said Koh. “They said you will lose your friends. But the experience has made our friendship stronger. I am able to share my hardship with my best friends.”

Lam added: “Entrepreneurship is quite a lonely journey. My friends who are in the journey alone cannot really celebrate with anyone. But when you are in the business with your friends, you know that everyone has a common goal and you can celebrate wins together.”

“Every day, we are solving problems together. Our skill sets complement one another,” said Koh. Chua is the operations person in the group, Novita is the creative, and Koh is the communicator and “glue”.

By the end of the year, the trio plan to launch two or three more lenses, and are toying with the idea of a galaxy-inspired design.