This Clean Beauty Brand's Support of Ghanaian Women Will Inspire You

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Shop Small is a monthly series highlighting small business owners from diverse backgrounds. This series aims to go deeper than your typical product roundup, diving into the inspirational stories behind some of our favorite brands. By taking a behind-the-scenes look at how their shops came to be and highlighting the products they (and their shoppers!) love, we hope to put a deserving spotlight on these marginalized business owners.

"Our story spans generations of moms," says Naa-Sakle Akuete, founder of Eu'Genia Shea, an all-natural shea butter business she founded with her mother, Eugenia, in 2014. The phrase “eu-genia” means “the origin of goodness” in Greek, making it a fitting name for a line of natural, skin-nourishing products.

The family’s connection to shea started with Akuete’s grandmother, Sunshine. "Her given name was Comfort," Akuete says. "She was everything bright, loving and supportive."

Grandma Sunshine used shea butter in her practice as a midwife in Ghana, inspiring Akuete's mom, Eugenia, to sell shea butter in bulk. But after Akuete's mom was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in 2013, Akuete moved to Ghana to become her caretaker and soon after started to oversee the business. In 2014, she expanded the brand under the name Eu'Genia and launched a line of shea products. "We're literally sitting on nature's wonder balm, but it hadn't really been positioned that way before," Akuete says.

Akuete took a leap of faith and quit her position as an equity research associate at J.P. Morgan in 2016 to pursue her business full-time. Before the official launch, she joined a range of startup programs with popular retailers, like Sephora and Anthropologie, which even began to sell her products online. "I was coming from finance and didn't have a beauty background," Akuete explains. "This was the first time I got to meet entrepreneurs in the same space who were in various stages of growth and success." She later joined Target Takeoff, an accelerator program that guides entrepreneurs through the process of breaking into mass retail. This led to developing her more affordable sister brand, Mother's Shea, in 2020, which is available at Target, CVS and Walmart.

Despite Eu'Genia's continued success, Akuete's entrepreneurial journey is still full of challenges. Read below to learn more about what it takes for Akuete to keep Eu'Genia at the top of consumers' minds, all-while balancing life as a married and soon-to-be mother of two.

Travel-Size Everyday Strength Grapefruit

Travel-Size Everyday Strength Lavender

Dermatological Strength

Shea Moringa Oil Spray Duo

Everyday Strength All Natural Shea Butter

Signature Shea Silk Cream Duo

How did your family inspire Eu'Genia Shea's creation?

"One of the things my mom realized is that across Sub-Saharan Africa, there are 16 million women who support themselves and their families through the shea industry. My mom decided she wanted to get more involved, so she became president of the Global Shea Alliance, where she advised governments and NGOs (non-governmental associations) about shea standards, quality and sustainability.

Along her journey, I realized shea butter is everywhere but many consumers weren't benefiting from it. If you flipped over a container (of a moisturizer), shea was the 20th ingredient. In Ghana, shea is known as women's gold because of how important it is for families financially. It's cooking oil, it's a body lotion — it's pretty much everything.

So when my mom was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and meningitis, I took over her business, selling bulk shea butter by the ton. I also started Eu'Genia, which is this line of shea products."

What's your process like sourcing ingredients in Ghana?

"When I went back for the first time, I sat down with all of our workers and as many of our pickers as I could. When my mom started, she worked with about 100 pickers — women who pick the shea fruit from the tree and then de-pulp and parboil it. They were either widows or grandmothers. We're providing them with health-care training, financial literacy training and, most importantly, training on organic and quality standards. One of the things we focused on was giving them consistent work at a fair price, and that's the basis of our business. We also built it into our long-term business plan, with a 15% profit share."

What are the benefits of including shea butter in your daily skincare routine?

"Shea butter absorbs quickly into skin and keeps it moisturized. It's a misconception that shea butter is not for people with oily skin. Vitamin A helps unclog pores and it's beneficial for people with acne as well. If you talk to a dermatologist about what makes a good moisturizer, they'll say something that helps smooth skin, fill in the gaps between skin cells and creates a barrier against the loss of moisture. A good moisturizer will do one of those things, but shea butter does all three."

Are there any essential oils in the products?

"Our Dermatological Strength formula is just 100% shea butter. The other Eu'Genia products have a handful of additional ingredients. It's generally moringa oil, Baobab oil and essential oils such as lavender, jasmine and grapefruit for fragrance. For our Mother's Shea product, we generally use apricot oil and sunflower oil along with a fragrance. With QVC, we've launched a body oil and lip balm and we're developing a few vegan soaps. We're branching away from shea-based products to more clean, generally African-based ingredients."

How do you handle the demands that come along with being a working mom?

"I got married in 2014, and we had our first daughter in 2020. We're expecting our second daughter in October. When I went into labor with my first daughter in November 2020, our products were on Good Morning America that day. I gave birth to her at 6:10 a.m. and by 9:30 a.m., our warehouse was calling me at the hospital to make sure orders were being delivered on time. It was insane and not a normal work-life balance.

On the other hand, I didn't have a team, so there wasn't a great alternative. It's just been about giving myself the grace to feel like I am working the appropriate amount, knowing what is good for my family and the job, and not feeling guilty for either working too much or not enough."

What's next for Eu'Genia?

"I'm really excited about our retail partnerships. We launched on QVC in February 2021 and in 2022, we won a QVC Star Award. We were named the Small Business of the Year! This year, we've already launched a few products and we're in the process of developing three more. I will continue working with retailers to better understand our customers and launch products people care about."

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