Elena Girlea left Romania with her husband for a new life in Canada in 2006. “My husband wanted to move and I was curious about living in another country,” recalls Elena. She had run her own spa in her native country and had dreams of doing the same in her adopted land. “In 2006 I didn’t open right away because business is different here than in Romania,” says Elena. “It took me a while to understand how to open a spa here.”
While Elena acclimatized to the Canadian spa industry she worked a few other jobs and even temporarily moved back to Romania in 2011. But Canada called the couple back and finally, in 2013, she was ready to open the doors to Felix Skincare Clinic. “I like it here more than in Romania," Elena says. "We moved back to Romania because we missed family, but we missed Canada too, so we came back here.”