From beauty to bathrooms: Find out how Jasmin left a career in brand marketing to add some magic to the family bathroom business. 

We love sharing student stories here at Able Skills, showcasing the wide range of reasons why people learn a trade and where it can lead. But this story is unique. When Jasmin popped back to see us, she didn’t come empty-handed. 

In this interview, we find out more about her journey from brand to bathrooms and how she revitalised her father’s 20-year-old limescale remover product, transforming it from an essential piece of plumbing kit into a household cleaning must-have.  

Able Skills: Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, about Magic Descaler and how you found yourself doing a plumbing course at Able Skills? 

Jasmin Aujla: My dad has a plumbers’ merchant and runs a bathroom showroom, Empress Bathrooms in Finchley, North London. We've had the business for 40 years. In my previous life, I lived in New York, working in brand marketing for beauty and fashion brands. But when I flew back to London, almost 3 years ago, I decided to join the family business.   

What is your job now?  

In terms of the business, there’s the bathroom showroom, we have the trade counter, and then we have the website, and I manage everything website-related. I do all our online sales, and that was actually why I did the course with Able Skills, so I could have a bit more familiarity with all the things we sell, and understand things a little bit better. And separately, I now have Magic. 

How do the family business and the course all link to Magic Descaler?  

We had this limescale remover product that my dad created 20 years ago. Lots of plumbers would come in and they have problems removing shower cartridges or thermostatic cartridges, or they're doing some pipework, and it's covered in scale, because it's been there for however many years, and pretty much everywhere in the UK has hard water. At the time, a lot of plumbers weren't thinking of using a limescale remover, they were using lubricants, like WD-40, but actually you need something to break down the limescale so that you can get things out without damaging it. 

So, he created and sold this thing called Magic Descaler, demoing it on the trade counter. Plumbers really loved the product, and they started keeping it in their vans as a piece of kit, the way they would keep CT1 or something like that.  

If I showed you this bottle two years ago, it looked like the label was made in Microsoft Paint – there was no ‘brand,’ but people loved the product.

Magic Descaler with it's new label; in it's old packaging; a before and after photo of a limescaled shower head

So, when I joined the business a few years ago, I had it relabelled, made it more of a brand. Even when we took it off the shelves for a month and a half, I'm not kidding, different people were coming in, one to two people a day were like, 'oh, where's the magic? I need to stock up'. 

I knew it was something that people really liked, and it's something that they were using a lot; we just had to make it more widely available.  

So, I relabelled it, we've made a website, set it up on Amazon. We sell in our shop and a few select plumbers' merchants around London, and just last week, the Ideal Home Exhibition.  

 Limescale is a universal problem, you just have to manage it.  

People spend good money on water softeners, and they are a good investment, but they don't remove the problem; they reduce it. You still get watermarks on your shower doors; it just builds up.  

What makes Magic Descaler different?  

One thing people don't realise is that many limescale remover products have very strong chemicals in. It does a good job on the limescale, but, over time, it can start to ruin finishes on your shower head, your taps, and once that tarnishes, you have to replace it, there's nothing you can do. Our formula has no harsh chemicals. It's a citric acid-based formula that basically helps to break down the scale layer by layer. I was demoing it with my bare hands for 10 days on the Ideal Home Exhibition stand. It's completely safe if you get it on your skin; it's safe on all surfaces.  

So, it’s not just for plumbers, then, you’re selling to everyday consumers? 

Exactly! We realised that because tradespeople and plumbers were buying it to use on jobs, a few of them actually shared it with their customers and said, oh, by the way, I used this on the tap, it's really good. Through word of mouth, it’s evolved to be a cleaning product. Our showroom team now recommend Magic – if you're in a hard water area, you should buy some of this just to keep it in good condition and as a preventative maintenance product.  

You did the Introduction to Plumbing course because you wanted to have more knowledge of plumbing. Did you enjoy it?  

I did. Tony was my instructor. I got my steel-toe boots and went into it not really knowing what it would be like. It was quite funny, I stood out a bit in the class – it was all men, either getting a qualification or maybe making a career change and wanting to learn a new skill. Then there was me that was like, okay, I just want to kind of learn about all this stuff.  

It was a really good experience; a lot more hands-on than I was expecting. One day you’re bending and soldering copper pipes and by the end of it you’re taking radiators on and off the wall and plumbing an entire bathroom.  I thought it was going to be more theory. I was quite impressed with all the things that I was able to do in quite a short amount of time – the whole week went by very quickly! 

Jasmin’s story is a reminder that learning a trade doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch. By combining her background in branding with hands-on plumbing knowledge, gained through her training at Able Skills, she has not only strengthened her family business but also created a product with wider appeal. Whether you’re looking to change careers or simply gain essential knowledge, taking that first step into a new skill could lead you in a whole new direction.