Busy mum finds oasis of calm for fledgling business

It is not many mums that can get the work/life balance just right – plenty of time with your children in those important early stages, and then relatively-guilt free hours to work on your own career.

It has been a long road to get to this place, though, for mum of two, Ionela Pápai. But, by being available to clients at evenings and weekends only, she has created a little niche for herself in the local beauty therapy market.

By day, she is a busy wife and mother, but when her husband, Feri, comes home, she goes upstairs to a converted bedroom in their home in Roscam, and becomes the therapist everyone dreams of; the soothing music casts away any thoughts that there are actually children in the house.

“The first years in any baby’s life are really important for them – I feel she needs me, and I need her as much,” she says of her one-year-old, Gabriella.

“Just to be there, for every step, for any new milestone she goes through. It’s not easy, but it is rewarding.”

Ionela’s strong-held belief in being present for those early years reflects the importance placed on motherhood by the government in her native Romania where, up to recently, mothers received social welfare payments to stay home for the first two years of their child’s life.

“Career wise, I don’t think I would have found a job as a junior beauty therapist that would have paid enough to put them into a crèche, and also to be happy as a mum, and for them to be happy,” she says.

Born near Bucharest, it used to take Ionela four hours to get to and from work every day in a clothes shop, due to the infrastructure being so poor.

“I remember during the winter, I was saving a whole month’s wages to get a pair of boots – the wages were, and still are, low. My brother is just above the minimum wage as a physiotherapist, and my sister is finding it hard to get a job,” she says.

She had an uncle living in Galway who arranged a working visa for her, and she first arrived here in April 2002.

“For me, I was lucky, I got the chance to get out of the country and to do something,” she recalls.

“I thought I would go back home after a year with lots of money – life is hard away from your parents, your country, and your friends. I did Salsa here when I came, and got to know people, but it’s not the same… I was very lonely, and found it really hard.”

In fact, the loneliness was so bad that she had booked her ticket to return home when her life took a very fateful turn and she was introduced to Ferenc ‘Feri’, who works as a software engineer for Fotonation, a company in Parkmore.

A Hungarian-Romanian from Transylvania, five hours away from Bucharest, he was friends with a fellow Salsa dancer.

“He used to come to watch, and one day I had back problems, and I rang our mutual friend asking him to pick me up and bring me to hospital, but he wasn’t available and sent Feri instead,” Ionela says.

“He stayed with me, took care of me, and brought me food – that was three months before I came home!”

She faced a very different type of loneliness when she returned to Romania though, leaving her future husband behind. And, she was unable to come back to Ireland for another six months, November 2004, until she had secured a study visa.

She trained as an interior designer – her flair is reflected in her gorgeous home – but was unable to secure work in that area as Romania was not in the EU at the time, and it was difficult to obtain a working visa. So, she got jobs in fast-food outlets until their first daughter was born in 2009, a year after Ionela and Feri were married.

“When I had Izabella, my husband and I decided that I wouldn’t go back to work for two years, so that I could care for her.

“The job was not paying that much, and it would have been cheaper to mind her than send her to a crèche.”

The couple then decided to have another baby, so that their children would be about two years apart, but things did not go to plan. Ionela suffered miscarriages, for which extensive tests could give no medical reason.

“I knew how my life would be – I’d have another baby – but it was not happening as I wanted it to… I got into a ‘place’, and I was quite disappointed.

Balancing motherhood with her career as a home-based beauty therapist is a full-time job for Ionela Pápai, pictured with her husband, Feri, and daughters, Izabella and Gabriella.

“Then, I decided to forget about it. I started to think that I should do something about my life, because I was not that happy about how it was going. I needed something else, and I was trying to figure out what I liked, and looking at courses.

“It was not a nice place to be at my age, to not know what I was going to do with my life. And, in terms of Izabella, I felt I should offer her more.

“All my life, I’d had problems with my skin, it was quite debilitating. I used to avoid socialising because of it, and never ever left the house without make-up. The lack of confidence made it hard to form relationships and I would blame my skin issues, even when not being able to secure a job.

“I’ve always tried to take care of my skin, and go for treatments, and one day I went for a ‘microdermabrasion’ and with the face mask on, I was looking at the ceiling and it came to me – this is what I’d like to do, to help other people to resolve their skin issues.”

Ionela studied at Georgina Price College of Beauty Therapy, during which she and Feri got a most unexpected surprise.

“I got pregnant at the beginning of 2013 – I didn’t think I would again, or be able to keep the baby, so for most of the pregnancy I was worrying, and I didn’t know if would make it to the end.”

Baby Gabriella came along in 2013, the same year Ionela became a citizen of Ireland. She was determined to establish a business that would fit around her life, and give her some self-satisfaction as well.

She named the business Ella Bella Beauty after her two daughters, opened last May – and she couldn’t be happier.

“I want to be able to help people look and feel their very best – everyone deserves that!”