Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Valerie Obaze. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Valerie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The idea for R&R Luxury came out of a personal need, it didn’t start with a brainstorming session as most new businesses often do. I was working as a freelance PR consultant at the time, but once the idea for R&R came about, my entrepreneurial spirit just had to jump on it!

I started R&R Luxury just after the birth of my first daughter – the brand was actually named after her (R&R are her initials). As I was becoming a mother for the first time, I wanted to use only natural products on my newborn and looked for a solution that was available locally to me at the time, in Nigeria, making use of the wonderful botanical ingredients available in this part of the world.

Shea Butter was the obvious answer for a highly effective, locally sourced moisturiser however, I wanted something that was a bit easier to apply – if you’re familiar with raw shea butter you will know that it usually comes in the form of a hard block and requires some manipulation (such as melting) before you can use it. When I found out that shea could be processed into a liquid/ oil format, my life was changed for ever and that is how R&R Luxury was born.

At the time I started R&R, no one was producing a finished brand of shea butter products for the skin, there were a few shea based hair care brands locally, but that was it. Shea Butter had always been seen as an ingredient to mix with other ingredients in a formulation but after learning about the power of shea as a stand-alone product, I knew I wanted to give people the best using 90-99% of shea butter in our formulations. Using shea oil really changed my life and so I knew this business would be worthwhile and help other people too. I started off making small batches of the product in my kitchen and gave it out to family and friends to try with the message ‘if you like it, next time come back and buy it’, and they were back in no time asking for more!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was born in London to Ghanaian parents and my heritage, being Ghanaian, has always a big part of my life and identity. I started working at the age of 14, while in secondary school, as I have always had an independent mindset and entrepreneurship has been ingrained in my brain from an early age. After graduating university, I started my career in the PR industry and now I am a wife, a mother to three daughters, an entrepreneur and an Africa enthusiast. My mission is to show the world the beauty that Africa has and I am doing that by taking ownership of the shea butter narrative, giving it an authentic and global voice. For far too long the ‘story’ of shea has been told by big commercial brands that use a tiny percentage of it in their formulations, but shea has been a part of my life since I was born – quite literally. In Ghana it is tradition that after a baby’s first bath, they are massaged with shea butter, it is said to give them good skin for life and with shea butter’s amazing moisturising properties, I am not surprised!

R&R is my baby, it is as old as my first daughter, who is now a teenager and watching what it has grown into has been a wonderful experience. The brand started in my mother-in-law’s garage with a jerry can (5 litres) of shea oil and now has grown to have a purpose-built factory, a processing centre at the source of our raw ingredients near the shea parklands, two stores and two operational offices. R&R started with just one product – Shea Oil – and now has over 20 products, still keeping indigenous African botanicals at the core of all formulations. Team R&R started with just myself and my husband, juggling the roles of accounting, marketing, manufacturing, administration, selling and everything else that comes with being an entrepreneur but now we have a team across Ghana and Nigeria consisting of over 25 employees.

Some of my proudest moments as the founder of R&R? Being called an ‘African skincare trailblazer’ in Forbes. Opening the WSDP Village – R&R’s processing centre in the Savannah region which works with over a hundred women in the rural North of Ghana who we support and empower. Being one of the first women-owned brands in Ghana to own our entire supply chain from sourcing to manufacturing to selling.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I started R&R Luxury whilst I was still working as a PR freelancer, so I used my income from that, along with savings from previous jobs to get going. Bootstrapping was the obvious way for me to get started, I was able to invest in small batches of packaging and raw ingredients and used low cost and free tools available to me to learn what I could about my industry. I took full advantage of social media and the internet when starting up the business by attending online courses and growing my customer base.

I think bootstrapping when first starting out is always the best way to go, people will be able to see how much you believe in your idea through all the resources you are using to make it happen. Once you’re at a stage where you need to move to the next step and no longer have the financial means to make that happen, then it’s a great idea to go to investors or banks, as you will already have the experience with running and financing your business.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

One of the most challenging things I have experienced with R&R was venturing into a realm of the unknown. My background was in marketing, not in manufacturing or cosmetic formulation, so I had to start from scratch and learn as I went along. You learn from experience and are able to develop the skills necessary to deal with new challenges that come along.

Fast forward 13 years later and we are one of the only brands to manufacture, source and sell in Africa – keeping our supply chain tight and helping to grow the economy and empower local communities by providing employment. We’re very proud to be able to give back and provide support to the community around us.

Contact Info:

• Website: randrluxury.com
• Instagram: valerieoba / randrluxury
• Linkedin: Valerie Obaze
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@randrluxury_/videos