With women across the world having become increasingly mindful of what the experts say are the negative effects on their overall health resulting from the use of chemical-based body and hair treatments, local girl Sherl Daniels believes that she is ‘on to something’ with her pursuit of what are known in the beauty industry as ‘natural products’ which she produces under the trading name Sherlcomestics Industry.
What has now become a project that holds boundless possibilities in a global multi-billion dollar beauty and body care industry, had its origins in Sherl’s 2008 visit to Suriname. She had gone there to extend the pursuit of what, at the time, she had felt to be her calling, that of a caregiver to the old, infirm and shut-ins. Suriname and what she saw there was to change her focus completely.
There, she became fixated with the well-groomed and healthy looking hair worn by many of the local women. She became curious, got close to them over time and gradually began to discover their secret… hair oils created from a mix of natural oils blended from well-known plants including Aloe, Kokrite, and Awara. She had discovered what was to become a preoccupation and applied the treatments to her own hair with a considerable measure of success. The beauty of her own hair eventually became a powerful advertisement for what was to become, eventually, a lucrative business pursuit.
It was not until 2017, however, that Sherl Cosmetics was truly ‘launched’ in the kitchen of her 460, East Ruimveldt Housing Scheme home, the various phases of its continual growth spilling over into her garage. A subsequent salon, now closed, had extended into the ambition to establish a factory in her backyard. Since then, however, Sherl has moved on, turning out shampoos, soaps, cashew nut butter and toothpaste created from extracts from local vegetation.
As is so often the case with local start-ups of this kind, marketing began by pressing relatives and friends into service as ‘guinea pigs’. They duly obliged in their numbers and a measure of her subsequent success is reflected in the fact that her clientele has now expanded to include the fiercely hair-conscious Venezuelans, Brazilians, and Cubans, living in Guyana. Market growth, she says, has been realised through attendance at various local promotional events including, UncappeD, Women In Business, and Farmers’ Markets, as well as through the display and marketing facility afforded by the Guyana Shop. These have been supplemented by social media while the interest of returning overseas-based Guyanese who have discovered Sherl and her products, has meant that she has established a modest clientele in Bermuda, St Vincent, St Lucia, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, USA, and the United Kingdom.
The local response, too, has been particularly pleasing, so much so that she offers free delivery up to Grove, on the East Bank, Golden Grove on the East Coast, areas of the West Coast, Parika and Bartica. In Georgetown, her products occupy spaces on the shelves of some of the country’s supermarkets and pharmacies.
Hair and body care have become both personal and professional preoccupations for Sherl, the holder of a President’s Award from the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA). Having healthy hair, she says, goes beyond frequent visits to the stylist. Hair has to be nourished if it is to be healthy. The use of natural products, she says, plays a pivotal role in ensuring hair health. Eating well, she adds, also contributes to healthy hair growth. It is a point that women whose preoccupation centres on visiting the stylist regularly, should note.
Sherl continues to have more than a passing interest in the establishment of a successful Beauty Salon at some point in her entrepreneurial journey. For now, however, that ambition is subsumed beneath what is now an expanded domestic and global interest in hair health.
No emerging business enterprise has remained ‘untouched’ by COVID-19. Sherl’s has been no exception. The evidence of this is reflected in the fact that she has had to lay off four of her five employees. The pandemic has also affected her ability to access some imported raw materials, mostly natural oils that are critical to her production process. These days, proceeds from product sales have dwindled dramatically from what she had previously earned from the enterprise.
Sherl’s reflection on better times, however, continues to be a source of encouragement. She relishes reflecting on her ‘outings’ at various marketing events and the attraction and patronage which these have afforded her products.
Still, she refuses to limit herself to hair care. The Pomeroon-born emerging businesswoman remains determined to maintain an interest in caring for the elderly. The determination, she says, is driven by the deeply upsetting experience of witnessing the quality of service which her grandfather received during an illness. Properly termed a Practical Nurse, (a practical nurse provides basic nursing care for patients and are responsible for their physical comfort though they do not administer medication), Sherl has worked at various Health Centres in Georgetown.
If circumstances, down the road, may compel her to leave one or the other of her pursuits behind, that is not something that preoccupies her at this time.
