Building A Beauty Care Brand..Against All Odds

As they say fortune favours the brave. Tanzania’s Nuya Hellen Daussen’s journey exemplifies that. Nuya, is the founder of Nuya’s Essence, the Tanzanian based company that manufactures natural bath and body care products that include shampoos, handmade soaps, shea butter, lotions and body oils. To deliver high quality products, Nuya’s essence produces the product in small quantities and works to deliver them to customers in a timely manner to ensure freshness. Nuya’s Essence pitching its products to a growing and affluent customer base that is health conscious.
Nuya’s entrepreneurial journey attests to the potent combination of passion and resilience. In 2010 Nuya, an International Business Administration graduate from Nairobi’s United States International University, was crowned as Tanzania’s Miss Universe. The prize included a scholarship to study at the New York Film Academy at the institution’s campus in Los Angeles. Following her graduation from her studies Nuya gave acting and modelling a stab in the LA market  However, Nuya did not get the break that she had hoped to get. So it was then that she decided to move back to Tanzania to go and reflect on her next career move.

Once in Tanzania, Nuya threw herself in a Job hunt-which she pursued reluctantly as she knew that what she really wanted to do was to start and and run her own business. Also, from her modelling background she had a passion for creating natural beauty and skin care products. Her ‘eureka’ moment came one evening after using a natural oil after a shower. Nuba wondered why it shouldn’t be the case that one should should use an all natural soap and natural oil afterwards. From then on Nuya got to work on her idea, doing research to understand the opportunity and what it took to make natural soaps. Nuya quickly realised that she would need skills to in the areas of making organic natural bath and skin care products.

So Nuya took a trip to Malaysia to be trained and mentored by an expert who was based in there. She would later pursue certification and become a certified organic skin care practitioner. She started Nuya’s Essence in a soap making factory in her parents backyard. Nuya ploughed her savings to set up the soap making factory which would later be closed down by the authorities because it did not meet their standards. Following the closure of her factory the determined Nuya began working on improving and raising the standards of her factory. In no time, she had gone back to the authorities to re-engage them in order to have the factory reopened. This time around the authorities granted her the  permission to operate.

Later on Nuya would make the decision tolocate her business to Zanzibar-a location where she could easily source raw materials for her products. Nuya’s company currently employs 8 part time staff in addition to her assistant-who supports Nuya in the production process. Other members of her family handle different aspects the company’s operations such as marketing distribution, and accounting. Nuya believes that given the stage where her company is, she does not need to hire full time employs. Nuya has got grand ambitions for her company which she hopes to build into pan African skin care brand. That Nuya is inspired by her love for Africa and Nature is captured in the company’s slogan-“Inspired by Africa, Inspired by Nature