A mishap with a skin product and the realisation that people did not know the difference between having beautiful skin and knowing what’s healthy for your skin, led Idowu and Odion Ejere to found their own cosmetics company. Esteem Royal Cosmetics started with a papaya soap in 2013. Today, it has 29 products, two physical stores and a team of 13 staff members. A journey that has been fraught with challenges and change, the sisters are undeterred. Instead, they are committed to dominating the Nigerian market and creating a lasting legacy in the skincare world. The question is how?
Across Nigeria, parents with all girls are often mocked based on the fear that the girls will be married off, and no one will carry on the family name. The Ejere sisters, Idowu and Odion, grew up in a family of seven girls, and their home was different. They were surrounded by love—their parents encouraged them to see themselves as complete individuals whose gender was not a limitation, they could do, and be whatever they set their heart to in life.
As children, Idowu wanted to be a diplomat, while Odion wanted to be an ophthalmologist. Today, they both run Esteem Royale Cosmetics, a beauty enterprise. Prior to becoming entrepreneurs, Idowu worked in the international development space; Odion worked as a lawyer and HR specialist. Their search for quality skincare products is what eventually led them to the beauty industry. “I had dry dull skin, so it took a while for me to find something that works for me,” Idowu recalls. It was not an easy search. A walk into many cosmetics shops in Nigeria will lead you to long shelves of products that were produced outside the country. Many of them filled with promises of lighter skin in a matter of days. Some of them contain dangerous substances that do more harm than good. Idowu fell victim to one of such products. “I once used a cream that gave me stretch marks,” she says.
Some women have worse side effects. According to a 2019 World Health Organisation (WHO) report, many skincare products contain dangerous chemicals like mercury, exposing users to adverse health challenges that includes; “kidney damage, skin rashes, skin discolouration and scarring, reduction in the skin’s resistance to bacterial and fungal infections, anxiety, depression, psychosis and peripheral neuropathy.”
After several trials and errors, Idowu finally found products that suited her skin. The results were visible, her skin looked healthier and brighter. The whitish patches on her ankles and elbows disappeared, and soon, people began to notice. “What do you use?” They asked her.
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In response, she not only told them what she used, she also saw a business opportunity to make quality skincare products available for fellow Nigerian women. This was the beginning of their entrepreneurship journey, as they sourced and sold the beauty products other women were asking them about. However, months in, they realised that the profit margin for the products they sold was not substantial. They also got complaints from some of their buyers—unaware of the differences in skin types, some wondered why products that worked well for others did not work for them. Based on their experience selling skincare products, the sisters realised that many people did not pay enough attention to their skin health.
"The skin is the shell for all the other organs of the body. Unfortunately, most people think it’s less important. Whatever you do to your skin, you have to live with it for the rest of your life,” says Idowu. She adds that many people were more particular about having ‘beautiful skin,’ even at the detriment of their health. Some of this inattention to the actual health of the skin can be connected to harmful beauty standards communicated through advertisements for skincare products. “Most of the adverts focus on beautification; not the health of the skin . Skin health is paramount. If the skin is not healthy, there’s no amount of beautification that will change it. Just as we have to eat good food, the skin also has to eat good food.”
Consequently, the siblings began to think about starting their own cosmetics business. In 2013, when their father retired, he gave each child a monetary gift to do something tangible for themselves. Together, the sisters decided to use their share to start a hair salon called Esteem Beauty Lounge in Manchester, England.
The Making of a Cosmetics Brand
Later that year, during a sisters’ hangout—a yearly vacation ritual among the sisters— Idowu and Odion spoke about the connection between self-esteem, societal pressures and skin care. They also shared their dreams of owning a global cosmetics brand with their sisters’, who all supported them. The next step was to come up with a brand name. It was only natural that their brand name would have “esteem” in it, similar to the name of their salon. However, fascinated by international cosmetics brand, Estee Lauder, they liked the idea of a combination of bisyllabic names—that’s how the name “Esteem Royale” was born.
“We wanted a prestigious brand. We added ‘royale’ because we wanted people to feel royal when they use our products. For a long time, we referred to our brand as ‘the Estee Lauder of Nigeria’.” They also read everything about the global brand. While Estee Lauder has blue as a brand colour because many people’s bathrooms were blue, the Ejere Sisters wanted to stand out, so they chose the colour red.
In September 2013, their first product, a papaya soap, was launched. In three months, the five hundred pieces they made sold out online. The feedback from the sales was overwhelmingly positive. “When people used the soap, they asked: do you have cream? Do you have a scrub? They wanted more.” According to the sisters, the feedback and requests for more, made them think about a range of inclusive products they could make.
By December 2013, they started speaking with formulators about the products for their first collection. They redesigned the papaya soap and added a lemon soap. The collection also included a beauty cream, face and body lotion, facial wash, facial mask and body scrub. They did their market research into premium skincare in Nigeria, and conducted some product testing. By February 2014, their new range of products was launched.
“Most people were enthusiastic to see well-packaged products selling in Nigeria. Many people thought it was foreign,” says Idowu. Soon, news about their products was no longer just word-of-mouth, it was moving from hand-to-hand, becoming a lauded must-have. This growth was not without some challenges, however.
The Challenges
Formulating and producing their inaugural collection soon proved to be the easy steps on their way to building a beauty brand. The sisters were faced with challenges such as clients’ desire for rapid change, erratic government policies, a fluctuating naira-dollar rate and the distribution of finished products.
In response, Idowu and Odion reviewed their online distribution model, and decided to approach brick and mortar stores. While a few stores were welcoming and stocked their products, others refused outright, saying they do not stock Nigerian brands. Even with the few stores that stocked Nigerian products, there were issues with product display, labelling and return-on-sale policy. At one point, for a period of 3-to-6 months, they were not paid for products that were already sold. “Though the sales on return contract said that we would be paid within 30-45 days,” Idowu explains.
Once again, the sisters were forced to rethink their strategy and find a more permanent solution to their distribution challenges. In November 2019, they opened their first physical store in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, where they stocked their products and other beauty brands. “We wanted to test the waters.” Idowu says that it was important for them to understand how people would respond to their products in the middle of other beauty products. The response was modest, and in October 2020, they opened another shop which they call an Esteem Royale concept store. "When you walk in, you see our shelves labelled according to product categories which are unique to us. Our retail assistant helps you understand skin types and product offerings. We also have our ads playing customer testimonials. You get the bird’s eye view of where we have been, where we are and where we are going,” she adds.
While the concept store is a reflection of the company’s journey, it also points towards its future. Odion gives an example of skin tech, a growing technology that focuses on the development of miniature skincare tools. Rather than visit the spa, you buy one of the tools, saving money and time.
In 2020, the global pandemic forced them to return to the drawing board, especially with their production line and supply chain. The pandemic caused an increase in the price of materials and a reduction in customers’ purchasing power. Their response was to move their entire manufacturing structure to Nigeria. “That way, we could reduce production costs,” says the sisters. “This helped stabilise product costs even as we retained our product quality.”
Eight years since the launch of their first product, Esteem Royale Cosmetics now has 29 unique products and runs two physical stores in Abuja, Nigeria. It has moved beyond a company of two sisters and now has a staff of thirteen.
Even though the skincare industry in Nigeria has the potential to contribute to the economy, overall, it has not attracted enough investment to scale. While there are several businesses experimenting within the space, most of them are stuck exporting just raw materials like shea butter and black soap, says Odion.
“We need to go from exporting shea butter and black soap to exporting more finished products. That’s the only way we can actually begin to contribute to the economy.”
Building a Legacy
From 2013 to 2018, the sisters worked on Esteem Royale as a side hustle, from different parts of the world. However, in 2017, they decided to take the company by the horns. They left their jobs and focused exclusively on Esteem Royale—they felt it was time for the business to stop playing second fiddle. While this meant that they could both work on their united vision for the brand, it also posed challenges: Working together on a full-time basis increased the stakes as well as the conflict. “When you work part-time, if the other person is annoying you, you can turn off your phone. Full-time, there’s nowhere to run. We are in each other’s faces every time. We argue about our issues and sometimes, we take breaks and return to the issue the next day.”
To address this, they were forced to understand themselves not just as siblings but as business partners. They also quickly realised that the success of the business sat squarely on their shoulders. Whenever there is a deadlock, they remember their childhood, their family of girls. They have to prove to themselves and the world that girls can run the world, and on their own terms.
Since they both became full-time entrepreneurs, they have seen the results in their business: increased sales as well as global awards. In April 2019, at the Pure Beauty Global Awards, their goat milk soap won the best new bath and shower product category. In 2020, for the same category, their clarifying soap was a finalist, while their serum toner was nominated finalist in the skincare category. The sisters look forward to more wins and more clients with healthier skin and better self-esteem.
“By 2022, we want to create a factory of global standards in Nigeria. We are committed to building a legacy in the skincare world,” the sisters add.
Sometimes, a legacy is beyond a family name, it is about leaving a mark. For the Ejere sisters, it is about building a global beauty brand, one product and a pleased client at a time.