The natural hair business is exploding everywhere you go! More and more people are looking into the natural hair care trend because of the vast opportunities and potential the industry has to offer. Taryn Gill, Founder and Managing Director of The Perfect Hair is amongst the many hairpreneurs in South Africa who are leaving a significant footprint in this industry. For more than 19 years, Taryn was working in the media industry as a publisher, and she was loving it. But this was about to change. When well -known stylist Brian Warfield introduced MixedChicks, an American hair product designed for curly coily hair, to Taryn in 2013, it was love at first sight!
Taryn loved the authenticity of the product; designed for her naturally curly hair and look. This is exactly what she needed, a natural hair product that catered for people with curly hair.
"I've always had curly hair. So just realising that it was always difficult for me as a mixed race consumer in South Africa to find products that suited my hair. And if you looked at girls with an African coil, it was even harder for them three years ago to find products that were suited for their hair," explains Taryn.
Eventually, after much thought, Taryn decided to tap into the hair product business and started The Perfect Hair, selling quality international haircare brands for curly coily hair.
“After having my fourth child, I wanted the flexibility that a corporate media job couldn’t give you. And as a working mom, I wanted something that I could do to reach this target consumer but still have the power to own the hours in my day. While on a trip to the states I discovered that African hair care in America was so much more sophisticated compared to what we had in South Africa. And if one had to look at the ingredients that produce the products, one will notice that they are African ingredients. For example shear butter, coconut butter, mongongo and marula creams. We had this crazy idea that considering I had done all this consumer research and marketing strategy background that I could launch my own brand, a proudly South African brand for African consumers,” explains Taryn.
Although the forty-three-year-old was new to the hair business and knew very little about the industry, she was determined to learn and make it work. Lots of research took place when putting together the ultimate natural hair products for the everyday South African woman. Together with a trichologist (someone who studies the science of hair), Taryn and her team identified nine different hair textures locally and found the perfect essential oils and methods needed to create the perfect product for the perfect hair. One of the amazing things about Taryn and her team is that they had conversations with their customers first to find out what their hair regimes are; what products are they were already using, what problems they faced with keeping their hair moisturised and styled before suggesting which one of their product they should purchase.
“I had a feeling that I was in virgin territory when my formulators, friends and trichologist connections had not seen formulas like the ones we had put together (my chemist and me). I mean really, what did a media girl, who'd been publishing for 19 years, know about haircare manufacture and retail?! I felt a bit of a joke, then I read, researched, went to see Dr Khumalo's team of trichologists at UCT, sat in on every hair debate and hosted one of my own, drew women in for a free hairdo and a chat for some on-the-streets feedback, and before I knew it, I had sweated out a range.
Taryn's entrepreneurial journey dates back from when she was just a young girl. She says her first business venture was selling avocados. She was only five years old at the time. Little did she know that these early experiences would drive her to venture into entrepreneurship in years that followed.
" I was about five years old when I started selling avocados on the street corner. So that was my first business. And then I sold old magazines to people in old age homes when I was about ten. So, I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. It is my passion and curly has always been my passion," adds Taryn.
Today, Taryn's is a successful entrepreneur and her hair products can now be found in various leading retailers including Edgars and Clicks stores. She says what separates her products from other competitors is that her products are organic, they have no chemicals and are well researched.
"We are a hundred percent vegan, all natural curl care, for girls with all sorts of African textures. And the one thing that I believe that makes us stand out from the rest as a business philosophy is that we are ethical producers. We are very careful about what we put in our products, how we blend them and how we achieve natural beauty solutions. That is so key for us, and we will never sacrifice when it comes to an ingredient. We will not say we are natural when we aren't and we make sure we keep the chemicals out of the product.
"So going into a space that celebrates natural beauty, I think it resonates with my consumer, she wants to be natural. She wants to know that her skin and her hair is naturally beautiful and she wants to see that reflected into magazines," explains Taryn.
Having a healthy cash flow is a fundamental component of any retail business that is hoping to thrive. But the process of selling goods for payment is more complex than it initially seems and there are various factors that can impact how well the retail operation goes. This has been the case with Taryn, who points out that cash flow is of the biggest hurdles in the retail business.
"I think your biggest risk is cash flow when you are in the retail cycle. Your supplier chain doesn't favour you as the manufacturer or the brand owner. So I think your biggest hurdle is constantly, not just reaching your consumer, but reaching your sales targets with enough cash flow to keep you going. So you always try to prevent a negative cash flow cycle and from a business perspective with us in our fourth year it has been one of the hardest initiatives."
Taryn is looking at growing her business and is hoping to expand her products to African markets. To achieve this, she says she would need strategic partners to help her out. She adds that she is open to strategic partnerships because they realise that it through partnerships that her business can grow to its full potential.
" It would be very hard to grow the business on my own so we are looking into strategic partnerships that can really take us into markets that interest us including Namibia, Zambia, Angola, Kenya, those are very interesting territories for us and for that we need strategic partnership."
"We want to be a very proud pan African brand. While the American markets are very saturated and the European markets have not exactly shown us the demands for these types of African hair care ranges, what we do know however is that on our continent we can do better in terms of providing natural curl care without having to import it from the states. So we see ourselves on a growth strategy into our continent providing solutions for our own African people," she concludes with a smile.
Visit www.theperfecthair.co.za to learn more
Featured entrepreneurs - Taryn Gill
Age - 43
Year founded - 2015
Turnover - R1,500,000
Start-up funding - R75 Overdraft