Denis Opudo
Many entrepreneurs with high level of creativity are venturing into beauty and skin care sector. They are taking into the industry the innovation that changes how businesses are run. A good example of an entrepreneur of such kind is Blondie Okpuzor who was recently interviewed by Business Daily. She is producing natural skin care products from raw materials that are fetched locally. She is also producing skin care and beauty products from original raw materials. For example, Jolof rice is one of her raw materials.
Blondie is the CEO of Bathkandy. Founded in December 2014, Bathkandy is a beauty startup that offers beauty products. Blondie founded the startup after receiving many requests from her close friend to come up with a Christmas gift for mothers. Blondie ended up making for her a skin care product. She, later on, posted the picture of the product on her BB where she received many requests on the same. Blondie says that she gained almost 50 orders.
She adds that by that time, she did not have any capital to put up a firm. But she decided to put up a beauty store in March 2015 due to high demand that she got from various people. She has an office at Lekki which also serves as a manufacturing place for the products. She manufactures the products with a team of other youths. The team manufactures scrubs, candles, soaps and other home products like a candle. The candles resemble desserts and are unconventional. It is possible for children to mistake them for desserts or cakes. The entry point at the shop has a caveat that reminds adults that the products are not for consumption.
According to the CEO, the company manufactures 50 different types of soaps. They use various raw materials in the manufacturing of the products. For instance, there is goat milk lotion product manufactured from goat milk. There manufacture scrubs from chocolate, coffee, and garri. All these products are manufactured in Nigeria. Additionally, they use products like chocolate, tea, oils in their manufacturing. According to Blondie, the company merges both art and science in its activities.
She adds that the company’s products are natural and carry out different functions. According to her, the products improve the skin and make it better than before. The company also uses the recycled materials collected locally for its packaging. The company expanded its operations in 2016 by setting up another office in Abuja. The fact that Blondie was allergic to many things made it easier for her to venture into the business. She says that there was a period in her life when her skin did not go well with the usual lotions and soaps. The only alternative according to her was to mix up various things including oil for her skin use. She adds that she was even allergic to water at times, so her act of mixing things helped her a lot.
The company also makes international sells. It receives many international demands on which they can deliver on in 5 working days. But it still sets its sight on global markets, for instance, it targets Kenyan, South African and Ghanaian markets. Blondie once worked with ExxonMobil, an international firm before setting up her own business. She encourages different entrepreneurs to be unique in their business ideas. This will allow them not to offer any room for people to copy their ideas. She adds that the entrepreneurs should always take competitions positively. This is because it helps them in improving the quality of their products. She gives an example of Coca-Cola Company where people have failed to copy on how they manufacture their products. But people do study how its run and use the ideas in their businesses. Apart from running the company, Blondie takes her time to mentor youthful entrepreneurs. She does this via her BathKandy University.
