Ronke Oke is the founder of Emi & Ben which is a natural skin care company producing body butters handmade with 100% unrefined shea butter. 

Ronke is also a PR boss who heads up her own agency. Now she is passing on her experience onto female start-up business owners by offering online courses and one-to-one PR mentoring. She took time out to tell me how she created her beauty brand.

What made you decide to set up your own beauty business?

I have always had a love of shea butter as my parents had used it on my siblings and I growing up, but it wasn’t always in the house so we'd have to wait for a family member who was arriving from Nigeria to bring some back for us. This is where the seed to start a business with shea butter was planted. I must have been under 10 years old and I remember saying to myself and to my parents that when I was older I would import shea butter to the UK.

Fast forward about two decades later, I was pregnant and was once again using shea butter as my body moisturiser, but this time it was sent via my Grandmother who lived in Nigeria. Receiving it once again through a third party reminded me of the promise I had made to myself, so the rest as they say, is history. So I got into the kitchen and started mixing up my own formulas. Once I knew I actually enjoyed creating body butters, I enrolled myself onto a skincare course as I had decided I would develop a skincare business specialising in body butters made from unrefined (raw) shea butter.

 What is the concept behind Emi & Ben?

To make unrefined shea butter readily available in the UK in its rawest form presented and in a way which allows the process of using shea butter an enjoyable one. Back in the day, as much as I loved using shea butter, I didn’t enjoy having to scrape bits of it off a hard large block of shea. It was also wrapped in clingfilm and stuck with bits of those infamous small plastic black carrier bags, which are synonymous with markets across West Africa. I’m thrilled I no longer have to experience this when using shea as this was painful and long.

 What sort of research did you do to find out what sort of products your customers needed?

To be honest, at the time I was my customer. I loved shea butter so much but I needed it to be presented in a way that made it easy to use. Popular mainstream brands marketed their shea butter with having natural skin healing properties, but I knew better. Their products didn’t include unrefined shea butter, which is the one you should be using if your sole purpose of buying it was to benefit from its natural skin healing properties. The shea butter they were using was refined, which means it’s gone through a chemical process and been stripped of its natural healing properties, so it has a longer shelf life and has a consistent ‘white’ colour. So basically, consumers are not receiving the true benefit of the product they bought due to shea butter being a core ingredient of it.

In terms of market research I sent out questionnaires to around 200 and the completed questions I received back consisted of friends and family and their extended networks. I had about 10 questions regarding their current skin care habits, products, pain points and interest and knowledge in unrefined (raw) shea butter and its benefits. Off memory I think I received about 50 completed questionnaires back and although the final sample was small, it didn’t stop me from starting the business. I also purchased loads of body butters from various brands, small and from the high street. Comparing consistency, smell, packaging and more. I carried out hours’ worth of desk research on the production of skincare. I also travelled up North to learn how to make different types of body butters from a natural skin care practitioner as well as completing a full skin care course at the local college.

 How did you decide on the look and feel of your brand?

I developed the brand whilst I was pregnant, so there was an element of pregnancy and baby which played a major part within the brand development process, as I was in this bubble then and ended up doing more research within this audience. The look of the brand is fresh, clean, approachable with a family vibe about it. There are also products which are targeted for young children ‘Little People’ pregnant women ‘Mama’s Bump’, parents ‘Grown Ups’ and every other family member in-between ‘For All’.

 What are your future plans for the brand?

For the last two years things the brand has been quiet. We haven’t done any markets, trade shows, or had much activity on social media. This silence was due to me losing my drive and focus to push things forward as a result of my Dad passing away in 2017. Losing him was the biggest loss I’ve ever experienced in my life. A huge gap was left and alongside that all motivation to continue working on building the business had gone too.

 Over these last two years I’ve felt so sad that I didn’t have the drive to take the business to the next level, particularly as Emi & Ben were one of the first visible shea body butter brands of this nature in the UK to present unrefined shea butter in this way.

I’m thankful that I’m now coming out of my ‘funk’; the loss of Dad will always be there and I know with this I will have good and bad days, however, I know he will be mad with me for not pushing through with the business which I worked so hard on when he was alive and that he was so proud of, so I’m picking up where I left off.

So, plans for the future? To re-introduce the brand and raise awareness that Emi & Ben is still very much here producing lush body butters and pick up the mic to continue sharing the benefits of just how wonderful shea butter, the natural product which hails from West Africa, really is. New products are on the horizon too, but for now we’re just shouting about our shea body butters.

 What are your favourite beauty products?

I’ve always loved Dermalogica’s Daily Microfoliant, my face automatically feels brighter after using it. I also love bentonite clay as I like to make my own face masks. I’m in the process of booking a consultation with Aesthetician, Dija Ayodele owner of Westroom Aesthetics, so ask me in a few month’s time once I’ve got used to the products she matches for me.

 What advice do you have for anyone who wants to set up their own beauty business?

My advice would be to go and work for someone running a similar company that you aspire to have. Shadow them and earn from them. Don’t be in a rush to run before you can walk. Retrain, go in from the bottom to learn all areas of the business, then come out the other side ready to kick ass in your own business.