Ya Sama Body Care is a cosmetics manufacturing business that was founded by Samane Molwantwa in 2020. She is a GEP client from the West Rand region and we caught up with her at the 2022 Youth Month event where she was exhibiting her products.
Ya Sama Body Care is based in Krugersdorp, where their factory is located.
Tell us about your company?
“We started the company in 2020, to fulfil my vision of creating a cosmetics range made of natural products. Natural products have been used for over centuries for body care therefore, using natural extraction, we believe, is the best way to develop skin health products.
What motivated you to start this business?
SM: Starting this company was motivated by my own experiences and the experiences of people around me. I couldn’t find any skin product that was well suited for me, especially eczema-prone skin, a condition that is very widespread.
A lot of people have sensitive skin, and many others struggle with acne-prone skin and I felt that this was not just a business opportunity, it was an opportunity make a real difference in people’s lives.
What kind of support did you receive from GEP?
SM: Before I approached GEP, my business was almost nowhere. In fact, I remember that we did not have access to the raw materials required for what we wanted to produce. GEP pitched in and said we can help you with getting more raw materials to produce more products. And that is how we got here, we even got assistance to get specialised packaging, a big improvement on our first packaging and labels, which not of were not of a good standard.
We now produce more products from the raw materials that we got. So, thanks to GEP we were able to meet our immediate demands and needs.
What inspires you and what are your goals for the company?
SM: We have amazing businesses in this field in our country, and I always hear them telling the stories of their success, from how they started and where they are now so I decided to use that as inspiration. I also want to be able to say I built this company from the ground up and now we are exporting to other countries.
We are making sure that our products reach the European markets as well because there are many African people in these regions who yearn for that sense of home and want to use products from our beautiful continent.
So, this is what we are representing, we are representing Africa at its best. We are looking forward to the future and hopefully, one day we can say we did it. But we are doing it right now.
