Meet Shelina, Co-Founder and CPO of Sulina Shop
Some people find their purpose. Shelina carried hers all the way from Fiji.
As co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Sulina Shop, Shelina leads product development and oversees every ingredient decision the brand makes. But her journey to that role did not start in a boardroom. It started in her grandmother's kitchen in Nausori, Fiji, watching, learning and absorbing everything quietly.
Her roots
Rooted in Nausori
Shelina was born in Suva, Fiji's vibrant capital. But it was in Nausori, just a short distance away, where so much of who she is was shaped.
Her grandmother lived there and she was the kind of woman who knew everything. How to cook. How to tend a farm. Which plants healed. Which ingredients worked on skin. She carried a quiet confidence that came from generations of knowing.
Shelina absorbed all of it. As a young girl she was already making her own face masks, experimenting with natural ingredients, learning that taking care of yourself from the inside out was just part of life. Nobody called it skincare. It was simply part of everyday living.
"Just taking care of yourself inside out. That's what we grew up with in Fiji."
She learned to cook Indo-Fijian curries at her grandmother's side. She learned which ingredients healed skin and which ones nourished. Turmeric, tamanu, coconut oil. Not trends. Not luxuries. Just ingredients that were part of daily life.
Suva, Fiji — where Shelina was born
The big move
Leaving Fiji at 11
Shelina was 11 years old when everything changed.
Leaving Fiji meant leaving her grandmother. Leaving Nausori and Suva, the cities she knew by heart. Leaving a life that felt completely natural and stepping into one that felt completely foreign.
She arrived in California not knowing English. At 11 years old, in a new school, in a new country, not being able to communicate was more than difficult. It was isolating.
But she carried something with her. The knowledge her grandmother gave her. The ingredients she grew up with. The quiet knowing that had been passed down through generations. She did not realize it at the time. But those roots never let go.
Shelina and Susan are Indo-Fijian, a community whose ancestors were brought from India to Fiji in 1879. Four to five generations later, that heritage lives in every product Sulina Shop makes.
The turning point
When her skin changed everything
Growing up, Shelina had what she describes as perfect skin. No acne. No marks. Just clear, healthy skin she never had to think twice about.
Then came her first pregnancy.
The hormonal changes were swift and unforgiving. Acne appeared everywhere. Her skin felt unrecognizable. She tried product after product and nothing worked. For a woman who had spent her whole life connected to natural ingredients and her own skin, it was deeply unsettling.
"It just got me down."
The moment everything changed
Going back to her roots
Then came the moment that changed everything.
She stopped reaching for what the beauty industry was offering and started reaching back for what she already knew. The ingredients her grandmother taught her about. The remedies she grew up making in her own kitchen. The natural formulas she had been creating since she was a young girl in Nausori.
And her skin cleared. Not overnight. But it cleared. The same ingredients that had been passed down through generations, across an ocean, through a grandmother's steady hands. They worked. Just like they always had.
The brand
From kitchen to Sulina Shop
That moment of going back to her roots planted a seed.
Together with her sister Susan, Shelina began building what would become Sulina Shop. A brand rooted in Indo-Fijian heritage, built around the ingredients they grew up with, made for skin like theirs.
Today as CPO, Shelina oversees every product decision, every ingredient, every detail from production to fulfillment. Sulina Shop is still a small brand and she is still hands on with all of it. The same care her grandmother showed her in that Nausori kitchen shows up in everything she does.
She still cooks Indo-Fijian curries. She still remembers the streets of Suva and the warmth of Nausori. And every product she puts her name behind carries a little piece of both.
"Sulina is about the heritage we grew up with. And just sharing that with everyone else."
Her grandmother lived long enough to meet both of Shelina's sons. Long enough to see the seeds she planted in that young girl from Nausori grow into something neither of them could have imagined. She passed away in 2023 and her presence lives in every product Sulina Shop creates.
This one is for Grandma.