With local fruit already in considerable demand on both the domestic and export markets the beauty industry is beginning to make its own additional demands on the sector.
The local market comprising primarily – though not exclusively women – would appear to have set its sights set on a range of tropical fruit in its ongoing search for new anti-ageing products. It is the inevitable mimicking of an industry in western countries that has long refined fruit into a range of creams that now form a major part of a global cosmetology industry that is believed to be worth around US$150 billion.
If the industry is smaller many, many times over here in Guyana, the exponential growth of the look good, feel good movement means that it’s hard to tell when, in the future, a basket of fruit bought from a municipal market is intended to be eaten and enjoyed and when it is intended as an investment in a beauty product.
The fruit-based anti-ageing creams that are now a craze in the western good looks sector have found their way into Guyana and the dictates of demand have, these days, fixed prices within a range that could start at US$30 per jar. The treatment, therefore, does not come cheap. At the popular beauty parlour, Kevin’s Reflections, the treatment will set you back $3,500.
In a society where both the science and the manufacturing capacity are missing ingenuity has become the order of the day in the cosmetology industry and Kevin John, the proprietor of Kevin’s Reflections, would appear to be positioning his enterprise for a head start on the rest of the local beauty sector in the use of locally made fruit creams. Last Friday, his stall at the Guyana Marketing Corporation’s Main Street Fair attracted considerable attention as a customer agreed to have a demonstration daub done to his face using a ‘cream’ comprising an assortment of local fruit pulped in a domestic blender. A nearby table was decorated with an assortment of local fruit: lemon, papaw, banana, pineapple and tomato along with sugar, honey and coconut oil.
In a nutshell the treatment is about applying the combination of fruit, sugar and oils to the face in a process that involves cleansing, opening the pores then putting the paste of fruit to work in its anti-ageing role. Fundamentally, it is a facial except that the scent that the customer experiences is that of local fruit rather than imported creams. Kevin’s Reflections plans to offer a full body treatment using the fruit paste in the future.
In the absence of a market to justify the multi-million dollar investment that will be required to create a viable industry, John believes that a more modest initiative may well be viable. For the time being the blended fruit pulp is placed in cold storage to counteract its perishable nature. John, however, is already talking about the likely use of Chinese packaging designed to stop the intrusion of air and preserve the product. Meanwhile, it may well be that new and potentially lucrative opportunities lie ahead for both the beauty care and fresh fruit sectors.
