Startup Story
Lwazikazi Kwaza is the founder and CEO of The Melanin House in South Africa, an Afro-centric manufacturing powerhouse that currently designs and manufactures specialized luxury fragrances in all categories. The Melanin House was founded in 2020 with the aim to represent the elite African luxury market, where simplicity meets elegance, in an afro-centric, majestic, and fragrant way. The Melanin House manufactures utilizing the highest quality standards guidelines such as the SABS ISO:9001. This ensures high-quality fragrances are manufactured with sustainability in the process through the use of organic products. The Melanin House is committed to producing high-quality fragrances that tell fragrant and majestic African stories, which will remain in the charts of African-conscious business history, through memory.
LoA spoke to the brand-building manufacturer, Lwazikazi Kwaza, about her entrepreneurial ambitions, her journey to date, and her vision for the future of the business.
When did you start your business?
I started my business in 2020, inspired by the Tresemme hair products saga and my black-conscious, Pan-African business beliefs. I realized the gap in the market regarding African products can be translated to the lack of African representation in the market, meaning African products, or rather products specifically designed for the use of black people, are rarely designed and created. During the 2020 period, the market was almost forced to be more diverse in their creations, and hence on 17 September 2020, The Melanin House was founded ("Melanin" meaning the pigment that makes one black) to represent Africans in the luxury and aromatherapy market. The aim was to create products inspired by Africans and for Africans, ensuring that these products are created with the highest quality to avoid the "black products/businesses are not competitive/elite" notion and to also ensure that our African people are on the map of high international standards. Today, the business employs 10 people.
“The Melanin House was founded ("Melanin" meaning the pigment that makes one black) to represent Africans in the luxury and aromatherapy market. The aim was to create products inspired by Africans and for Africans.”
What does your company do?
The Melanin House is an Afro-centric manufacturing powerhouse that currently manufactures and designs luxury fragrances in all categories and aims to expand by introducing other organic cosmetics and luxury products. We currently manufacture luxury fragrances in these categories: Eau De Toilette, Eau De Parfum, and Parfum.
What inspired you to start your company?
I was inspired by the Tresemme hair products saga and my black-conscious, Pan-African business beliefs. I realized the gap in the market regarding African products can be translated to the lack of African representation in the market, meaning African products, or rather products specifically designed for the use of black people, are rarely designed and created. During the 2020 period, the market was almost forced to be more diverse in their creations, and hence on 17 September 2020, The Melanin House was founded ("Melanin" meaning the pigment that makes one black) to represent Africans in the luxury and aromatherapy market. The aim was to create products inspired by Africans and for Africans, ensuring that these products are created with the highest quality to avoid the "black products/businesses are not competitive/elite" notion and to also ensure that our African people are on the map of high international standards.
“The Melanin House is special not only because it exists as a business movement, which means business is used as a form of activism. It is special because it is customer-centric.”
Why should anyone use your service or product?
The Melanin House is special not only because it exists as a business movement, which means business is used as a form of activism. It is special because it is customer-centric. The Melanin House ensures that the client is highly satisfied and that the experience is Regal, Rare and Raw, which means it is Regal-elegant, Rare-supernatural, and Raw-authentic, as our fragrances are specially crafted according to the clients’ specifications, granting our clients the opportunity to create their own Melanin Magic and tell their fragrant majestic story through scents and their senses. We provide our clients with the unconscious level of olfactory joy through aromatherapy, hence providing olfactory and soul satisfaction with our majestic Afrocentric fragrances.
Tell us a little about your team:
Since 2020 I realized that most fixed costs can be avoided and this can allow for growth in other areas of the company. Therefore, I decided to not follow the employee/employer system but rather the collaboration route, which is much more cost-effective and value-based. I collaborate with content creators, artists (with social great media presence), and designers, to ensure that the objectives of the company are reached and that is to market and distribute the products profitably.
Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?
I come from a very humble entrepreneurial journey, where I started mandatorily street vending at the age of 6. If I am being honest was not really aware of the entrepreneurship I partook in daily for at least 12 years of my whole childhood and young adulthood life. I didn't realize that my foster mother, the brainchild of the street vending shop, was training me to be a businesswoman and start my own business at the age of 23.
My entrepreneurial journey is nothing but bitter-sweet, How did my business actually start?, Why choose perfume-making of all things? Well, the story begins at the age of 6 but resumes at the age of 19, the year is 2017, when I find myself stuck in a shelter for homeless women and children (admitted for DV-related cases). This shelter is called Esther House, I stayed there for 9 months and left the shelter to go study Management Accounting at Durban University of Technology. For the first 2 years of my University, I had to hustle due to Nsfas delays and complications and hence I found myself washing sneakers and dishes at my student residence for R10 per load/sneakers. During the first semester of my third year, in the year 2020, I found myself at the same shelter again, this time around, they were teaching skills. Fortunately, they taught me how to mix and package fragrances and I went back after a month to my student Residence, which I had to vacate before that due to Covid regulations.
When I returned to my student residence after a month, it was probably around April, I did more research about fragrances, their history, and how to create a competitive product. I read more books, then joined the Entrepreneurial community at DUT, became part of their incubation program, and started doing more R&D by investing my NSFAS stipend monthly into the business. Hence I started making the perfumes, giving out samples, conducting surveys, and making some sales and was able to secure some funding from DUT' Entrepreneurial Department and grow the business to a more commercially viable and sustainable business.
“I get the most satisfaction from being able to create my Pan-African narrative through fragrances and being able to share that gift with the world. The gift is the opportunity to mix and make the finest, elite, and majestic African products that exude Afro-centric supremacy.”
What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?
My future plans for The Melanin House include:
Expansion - This means that we are increasing our distribution channels and ensuring that we are tapping into the international and Pan-African market and to ensure that we increase our social media presence, allowing us to utilize social media platforms as e-commerce trading hubs.
E-Commerce - Increase conversions that are made online to ensure that we can convert online platforms into online stores and hence increase our return on investment and hence expand the business by investing in other products.
Innovation - Advancing existing product to endure that they remain in high quality and extra competitive. Expand the business by creating new products such as Body Lotions, Creams, Hair Products, Household products and to also Introduce a clothing line that supports the fragrance line, hence commencing the powerhouse creation.
Marketing and Sales - Ensuring that we convert international and national new clients into loyal clients and to ensure that these conversions are maintained and increased through great customer engagement and satisfaction because as The Melanin House our main goal is to please and serve the client as if they are Kings and Queens because we believe that Africa is a Palace of Palaces and hence our clients are indeed Queen and Kings.
What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?
I get the most satisfaction from being able to create my Pan-African narrative through fragrances and being able to share that gift with the world. The gift is the opportunity to mix and make the finest, elite, and majestic African products that exude Afro-centric supremacy. It is this gift that allows me to try and inspire the next African child, that the African people and that of the diaspora are free to free themselves from all forms of former and present mental shackles.
I love the ability to uplift communities and individuals through a simple fragrance. I do this by sponsoring local events and doing barter trades with artists, ensuring that we see each other's value and share the value.
Networking, it is crazy how one idea(product) can give you a seat(s) at the table(s) you never belonged at. The opportunities and possibilities are endless.
The ability to take risks and to learn fast.
What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?
Take your time with it. Business is a science and an art and hence it requires patience and creativity. Failures are stepping stones to success and that is how ideas are mined and refined, through failure.
Consistency is key, do it, even if you hate it. Think long-term but very highly present in the moment, focus, that is the real magic. It will get harder before it gets easier and if it's too easy, it is definitely not it. Work smart and not hard, collaborate with the best, and learn how to exchange value, not money.
Contact or follow The Melanin House:
Email: lwazikazijk@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themelaninhouseregal/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themelaninhouse_regal/?hl=en
Why LoA loves it…
There is a long-standing tradition of story-telling through business, connecting customers with brands and making products resonate with buyers. Lwazikazi Kwaza is leveraging the power of storytelling with her business, The Melanin House, and is committed to producing high-quality fragrances that tell fragrant and majestic African stories that linger in the memory. Africa needs more brands like Lwazikazi’s that are celebrating the art of fragrance manufacturing but with a focus on what the continent’s consumers like to buy and wear. A brand to watch over the coming months and years. — Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo, Lionesses of Africa