Ms Perrine Marie Samuella is a beautician from Latanier, Rodrigues. She is, however, not your usual kind of beautician. The owner of a mobile beauty and health salon, Marie uses products that are natural for her work and to make money and make her clients happy. This work involves beauty care and hair dressing using bio products, slimming and relaxation, Ayurvedic and Swedish massage.
Marie is a member of Sept Etoiles Beauty Centre; is a group of women entrepreneurs who were trained in making and using organic natural beauty products through SWITCH Africa Green support. The project was titled “Developing capacity amongst Rodriguans to adopt green businesses through training to key stakeholders and the development of a green business guidebook” and was implemented by the Commission for Environment, Rodrigues Regional Assembly.
Through the SWITCH Africa Green programme, Marie was trained on her business by Ter Mer Rodriguez Association and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority of Mauritius. Accruing from that training, she is more aware of the potential of natural products in the beauty sector. The training equipped her with knowledge and proficiency on how to use and affect essential oils for massage and other relaxation treatments. As a result, she upgraded her services and decreased the costs of her enterprise with the exclusive use of bio products. Some of the other trainees ventured to produce the various beauty products and can now supply these products to Marie and other beauticians for their business. Several new businesses were created from this training on the Island.
“I first trained at Sept Etoile Training Institute to learn about natural products for hair,” says Marie, a saloon and spa entrepreneur. “I was very interested in this course, I now recommended to my clients to use natural products. Natural products are cheaper, but also better for the skin as they help avoid diseases and skin issues. It can really help you to avoid a lot of things.”
Marie considers herself lucky to have been selected to participate in the second Regional meeting in Burkina Faso that was organized by the SWITCH Africa programme. The networking forum enabled Marie to increase her contacts and, suppliers of shea butter, which is constantly used for the manufacture of beauty products. Ter Mer Rodriguez and SME Mauritius Ltd were crucial partners of the programme that helped her boost the visibility of her enterprise through annual fairs, workshops and forums.
“Natural products have really helped me grow my business. First of all, financially, because I don’t buy from outside, everything is produced from Rodrigues Island, this makes it affordable and attractive for my business. I think this project is really, really important for the Rodrigues community.”
Once the Sept Etoiles Beauty Centre entrepreneurs gained knowledge in making natural beauty products, their customers developed a preference for organic products over inorganic products. These entrepreneurs have since created new business streams and received positive feedback from their customers. As a result, they have registered a higher number of walk-in customers since introducing these organic products. They now hope to improve further through training in marketing, business plan development and record-keeping.
On her part, Marie is expanding her business and marketing it even further by increasing its visibility and enhancing her professionalism by diversifying the equipment she uses.
Marie says that the local community lives alongside the resources and therefore have direct access to them. She hopes to be able to grow her business, even more, to be able to add more value to her business.
