Spa owner starts business to cater for ethnic skin
'We’ve relied so much on Western products tested on white skin'
Self-image is an important part of being human, how you see yourself affects so many things in your life.
For black people, there have been many factors historically that may have caused damage to our self-images, things like not being represented or catered for in the global beauty industry. Luckily that has started to change. This week we speak to two women who have tackled the issue of beauty and self-image in their own ways in the hopes that they’ll be empowering young black people going forward.
Nokukhanya Thobile Ngcobo, 31, known as Khanyi, started her skincare business in the kitchen of her apartment in March 2020. She called the business Khanyi’s Glow and in the space of two years she went from working out of her kitchen to opening a spa and a showroom for the products in three cities.
“We are specialists on ethnic skin… we’ve relied so much, as black people, as ethnic-skinned people, on Western products that are tested on white skin, not our skin… there are so many companies since now we’re in the mainstream beauty industry, so many suppliers who would approach me with all sorts of facials, saying you should include this in your facial, you should include that into your facial and I felt that it doesn’t go with ethnic skin.
“Some things like micro needling, with my experience and the people I have seen in the spa, is that it gives you hyperpigmentation and that’s why we don’t have it. We have a more natural version of that which is the algae peel.”
Her spas can be found in Umhlanga in Durban, Midrand in Johannesburg and Sea Point in Cape Town. She employs 18 people. Ngcobo uses only natural ingredients in the making of her products, some of which include moringa oil, tumeric and lemon body wash, Chebe hair butter and stretchmark cream.
“The products are natural, so sometimes my clients have to keep them in the fridge because we hardly even add preservatives into the products. It’s active products, so you have to put them in the fridge to prevent rotting, they’re so good.”
The spa offers treatments for the face, body and vaginal areas in the form of facials, dermaplaning, full body scrubs, fat freezing, vaginal steaming and vajacials among others.
Ngcobo says it wasn’t that expensive to start as she used organic materials to make her products. She started out with just two people to help her but had to move premises as the security personnel at her residential complex complained due to the high volume of customers that made their way to her unit almost daily. Her landlord also wasn’t happy with the apartment being used as a business space and that led to the birth of her first spa in Midrand.
Ngcobo is no stranger to business, a marketing graduate from the Mangosuthu University of Technology, she had a successful online clothing boutique and worked in sales for an automobile company. She also went through the training and initiation to answer her ancestral calling, though she is not a practising traditional healer.
“Khanyi’s Glow is a product of my calling, my ancestors would be the ones who tell me about formulas… they are the ones who tell me, who come to me in visions and in dreams, they tell me what to mix.”
Starting the business during lockdown appears to have been the best decision for Ngcobo as she says people were eager to try her products as they had the time to focus on their skincare.
HAIR LOVE FOR YOUR LITTLE ONES
Independent filmmaker and now author Yolanda Keabetswe Mogatusi, 37, has written a book titled Rapulani, about a feisty seven-year-old girl with big hair and a blended family.
Rapulani is dealing with the loss of her mother and coming to terms with her father’s remarriage. The young girl goes on an adventure due to trying to escape from her stepmother who is adamant on fixing her hair for the first day of school. During this adventure, we see how Rapulani’s hair reacts to the elements and comes to her rescue. The story is written in such a way that it imparts knowledge about black hair as well.
Mogatusi says that she wrote the book so that young black children can take pride in their image, and for them and other kids in general to have a book that navigates emotional issues such as loss, change and acceptance.
“I started working on the concept six years ago, I started on it after my mom passed [away].
“At the time I was also working with kids and I realised that children have a hard time dealing with change and loss. They don’t know how to articulate what they’re feeling, and so they often act out.”
Another thing which motivated Mogatusi was that she dealt with children who thatwere slightly well off that were struggling with self-image. S, she had erroneously assumed that as their parents were "woke" they would not have stereotypical hangups about black image and hair.
The hair conversation is one that appears to follow Mogatusi, her first short film, Hair that Moves, has been played at film festivals the world over. There is an animated version of the Rapulani book, which is available on KweliTV, as well as a game. The game of course is centred on Rapulani’s hair.
“I would love that Rapulani the book and the character encourage a fresh young generation of African kids to be confident and happy with who they are.”
The book and game will soon be available in SeTswana, IsiZulu and Afrikaans.
The English version is now available via the website AllThingsRapulani.com and on Takealot.com and Amazon.