Why I Started Meremeta Africa Beauty
By: Meremeta Africa Beauty
Tags: Skincare, Beauty, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Makeup

Written by Joy Stacy

I realized that high-end beauty and fashion entrepreneurs in Nairobi need a way to successfully launch their brands online because they lack the expertise to do so. Meremeta Africa Beauty currently partners with beauty and fashion entrepreneurs in Nairobi to launch their brands. So jump on a few calls with us, and let us do the hard work for you to launch your brand within 3–6 months successfully.

Meremeta Africa is the first Pan African beauty brand of its kind that supports, encourages, and showcases the true beauty of Africa and its people. At Meremeta , we are passionate about African beauty stories told by Africans and increasing usage of Africans’ best beauty and fashion products and programs.

Furthermore, we seek to ensure Africans have a better understanding and access to contextual beauty and fashion. The concept behind what we do is enhancing the confidence in our continent and heritage as Africans, therefore, encouraging the true beauty of Africa and its people.

Fiesty, Mrembo and Fragrance-free from left to right launched in March 2021

Believe it or not, I launched my first range of products in March 2021 then took it off the market months later. That might have caught you off guard, I know. You’re probably even wondering why that happened but first let me take you back.

I remember frequent trips to the dermatologist on the weekends in Nairobi before 2010 with my mum and sister. My sister had moderately severe acne, so we looked around and eventually discovered African soaps. This discovery came as a relief because they worked.

The only problem was that they stopped working after some time, and brand owners did very little branding. Finding something that worked once was not guaranteed to find it the next time you went shopping as sellers struggled to tell the soaps apart due to the branding issue. We ended up trying a lot of things.

Fast forward to 2016 when my sister and I linked up for the first time in eight months, and her skin was glowing!! That fuelled my interest in the beauty industry because my sister’s frustration around acne and acne treatment at the time bugged me, but the glow up touched my soul. I started being intentional with my skincare routine which surprisingly got me many inquiries regarding what products I was using and eventually resulted in an exciting opportunity.

The glow up began :)

I was an International Business Administration major concentrating on entrepreneurship at the United States International University, Africa campus — (USIU) at the time. I went from getting one inquiry about my skin every other day to about ten daily so I stopped only telling people what products I was using, and started letting them know I would get the products for them. That’s how I started a business. I was determined to help people achieve the skincare results they wanted, given what I watched my sister go through.

That reminds me of a basic principle of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is helping people, solving a problem, giving value, and serving people. I used to import the tea tree line of The Body Shop products from the UK and sold by word-of-mouth from 2017 to 2020.

My passion for beauty started growing, and I found myself wanting to solve more problems. That led to me wanting to create a brand and dreaming about what the business could be. For two years I slowly created a vision for the business, which has grown since but never really changed. During this period, I also experimented with different things, from facilitating personal branding sessions to initiating online makeup challenges.

Representing Meremeta Africa Beauty at a personal branding session with Nova Girls in Kenya in summer 2018

Speaking on matters personal branding during the summer 2019 two-day career launchpad workshop for year 12 students at St. Andrew’s Turi in Kenya

The personal branding sessions were in collaboration with Project Exponential Kenya, Nova Pioneer, and St. Andrews Turi. The goal was to empower Africa’s most significant asset (fellow youth) with the kind of knowledge they can use to create something from the essence of who they are. I selectively went through a personal branding course and consulted a personal branding expert for more insights. This resulted in great reviews, one of which I highlighted on the Meremeta Africa Beauty Instagram page. The post has over 1,500 views.

The makeup challenges came at a time when makeup lovers in Africa were bored. The challenge entailed recreating an album cover of one’s choice having makeup colors represent the colors of the album, or a complete transformation of hair and makeup.

The Album Cover Challenge Part One launched in May 2020

The Album Cover Challenge Part 2 launched in May 2020

I wanted to explore makeup as part of what we do at Meremeta and take advantage of people spending more time on social media to create an online presence. I formed a team, collaborated with makeup micro-influencers, posted content on our brand new social media pages, and responded to direct messages and comments. This resulted in over 2,700 views and 1,000 comments in the post with the highest number of views, which translated to an increase in sales by 50%. We also had over 100 participants from 3 different African countries namely Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt in just 2 weeks.

Highly commented on look from part one of the album cover challenge by the young and talented Tinashe Mwaniki from Kenya

Voted best simple look in part one of the album cover challenge by talented digital creator Nicole Midaye from Kenya

Fire look from part two of the album cover challenge by amazing artist Daniella Almona from Nigeria

Another bomb look from award-winning international makeup artist ‘Make-Up by Sandra’ based in Kenya

I started working on a hand cream range in September 2020 and launched in March 2021.

Fragrance-free, Mrembo and Fiesty product labels designed by the talented Regina Kamau from Kenya

Taking the products off the market was a conscious decision I made for two main reasons. First, I wanted to increase our range of products then launch the brand, but my first product did not meet the standard I had envisioned in my mind. I know as an entrepreneur, it is a good idea to keep reiterating then launch and relaunch, but the more I tried to stick with it, the more sure I became that this was not what I wanted. I didn’t feel right. I used to make the products from home, source supplies, and pack them myself but I just did not enjoy that part of the process. All in all I appreciate the fact that I took this step because that prompted me to think about what I wanted to be doing in the business daily.

Fiesty shot by Nicole Cherono from Kenya

Fiesty shot by Nicole Cherono from Kenya

Mrembo shot by Nicole Cherono from Kenya

Mrembo shot by Nicole Cherono from Kenya

This inspired our new consulting service.

Check out our landing page on https://meremetaafricabeautyconsulting.carrd.co/

Why did you start your business? We would love to hear about it in the comments :)