Appetite For Business

Starting with just $45, Ghanaian entrepreneur Violet Amoabeng’s startup has progressed with skincare products you can eat and the unpalatable realization that the only way to make it in business is to crash, break, stretch and succeed.

- PEACE HYDE

IT WOULD BE HARD TO decide if you would place Violet Amoabeng’s products in the beauty cabinet or on the kitchen shelf.

Skin Gourmet, Amoabeng’s skincare range, uses natural raw materials that are pure and free of preservatives that you could use on your skin and eat at the same time.

Edible beauty?

“If you cannot eat what you are

putting on your skin, then why put it on your face?” asks the Ghanaian entrepreneur who admits to always gravitating towards the unconventional.

“It made more sense because what I wanted to create was something you could either choose to eat or wear, either way it is good for you.”

She launched Skin Gourmet Limited with only $45 five years ago, but it is now a business that generates over $200,000 annually.

“My dad would not give me the money to do any business because he believed that if you don’t do business the hard way, you will not be able to survive when you hit hard times and no one will help you,” recalls Amoabeng about her journey to becoming a self-made businesswoman.

She had to think differently.

Even as a child, when her classmates were debating careers as doctors, bankers or lawyers, Amoabeng opted for poetry, when she could have easily thought of following in her parents’ footsteps.