Nigerian business woman Blondie Okpuzor has created a line of ‘birthday cake’ soaps, as a way in which to stand out in the booming naturals market within the country.

Creating the products within her Lagos-based store, Okpuzor has developed the range to fall in line with her sweet-inspired beauty product range named BathKandy, which produces products such as soaps, scented oils, home fragrances, scrubs and polishes.

Speaking of the venture, she said, “I think people love things that look good. So, I mean we are in Nigeria so there is a lot of people are doing natural products, and I just think generally the population we are moving towards natural things. So, it was a function of how do you stand out and these are the things that I personally like.” (sic)

With the Nigerian health and beauty market a fast-growing business sector, Okpuzor launched the company with an initial investment of US$9,800 and is now developing the birthday cake soaps as a ‘sweet in-store experience.’

Speaking of the problems encountered by Nigerian start-ups, she said, “We manufacture everything here, you need power. So if you are running your generator 24 hours that’s a bit of a challenge right? Another issue that we face was employment and staffing I think we are good now, but it took a while for us to a place where we were okay and comfortable with what we had.” (sic).