Interview with Sonal Haria, Co-Founder of Canvas Cosmetics

What is your assessment of the sector in Kenya? What are the latest trends? Is the market competitive?

Like a lot of industries in Kenya, beauty is up and coming. It is a fairly new and recent industry. With the growth of women entering the workforce more and social media, a lot of women are now earning independently resulting in a whole movement towards looking and feeling your best. Looking at independent brands in the Kenyan market, it has been around 10 years. It is not as competitive or as saturated as other areas like Europe, the Middle East, or America. There are few established brands, but very few, enough to count on one hand. There is still the need for a lot of good, independent brands to enter the industry. We are the third or fourth brand to enter. We are fairly new, quite fresh and young. We are not really centered around one personality, but we have come in as a whole brand. There are a lot of bloggers or well-known social media personalities that have gone on to start their own brands. There are other brands that have been well-established for ten years, but we find that they are not every agile on their feet in terms of keeping up with trends and what is going on internationally.

What products do you offer?

Something we really want to go into is mentorship. Having started this company ourselves and being a woman in business, I want to be able to share my experiences and guide women and give them the courage to actually go out there and do it.

I am the co-founder of Canvas Cosmetics. We call ourselves the makeup brand for the independent, on the go woman. We came here because I myself as a girl was looking for products and brands that I could connect with and find available in Kenya. Many Kenyans travel a lot and there are a lot of independent brands available all over internationally, but not here. The main problem is that every time you travel, you would need to stock up in another country or have a friend of a friend bring a few products back. That lack of variety or availability of these brands is why we wanted to create something that is fresh, affordable, high-quality, and a brand that women and people can connect with. We want them to feel like they are part of a brand. We started with 15 colors of matte liquid lipsticks which we later expanded to 25 colors. They have a vanilla scent and they can last from 6 to 8 hours. It is the perfect kind of lipstick for the on the go woman. It stays and keeps your lips hydrated as well. The formulas are really great. We really wanted to represent where we came from, so we have the Nairobi skyline on the packaging. In terms of color, what was really important for us was to provide colors that fit with every skin tone. Women can come to our selection and choose something that fits their skin tone, from extremely fair skin to warmer colored skin tones. Our mission was to provide women of color with lots of options. In terms of pricing, we are affordable and we give you value for money in terms of quality. We are one of the only brands that are fully certified and tested. When we started out, transparency and laying the right foundations in terms of ethics and our business values was very important for us as entrepreneurs. At the same time, our vision is to grow and scale and take a bit of Africa and Kenya into the world. We needed to start laying those foundations to be able to then grow into other countries and really play among the international players. We then launched our Glambition Collection. This was a very fun collection that was launched in May. This is a word that is very special to us. It basically combines the glamor and the ambition of everything that a woman is. So, it represents someone like me: an entrepreneur, the on the go woman who is self-made and self-driven trying to build herself and her career. At the same time, though, you want to look good doing so. We create all our products to be very long-lasting, really good quality in terms of the pigment or color so that they can last throughout the day from waking up at 6 am and going all the way to late night meetings or events. What was really important to us was formulas as well as being able to create a palette that can fit all skin tones. With this, we also have two lip glosses and a highlighter palette as well. For us as a company, we have two angles. The first motivation or vision is to really give the world access to Kenya and Africa which is changing so much. Us living here is not really what people perceive it to be on TV. Kenya is such a growth and innovation hub, especially Nairobi. It is called the Silicon Valley of Africa. There is so much happening and so much creativity and culture and inspiration. There are so many different young people making changes. That is the vibrance and the essence of Nairobi that we wanted to bring out, especially among women. The second motivation was using makeup as a means to bring women together, to empower them, and help highlight them and put them in the spotlight where they would not normally be recognized. We want to showcase something extraordinary that a woman has done. A few weeks ago, we had a soft PR launch in Dubai. It was really a way for us to interact with women in the beauty industry there and introduce them to our products and our brand. For us, it is important to connect with everyone we meet wherever we are. We have the advantage of being able to do that as we are a small and growing independent brand. My partner and I, as the founders, can take the time and go and connect with all of them. It is important for us to tell our story. We wanted to grow and expand because we are such a mix. When someone asks you where you are from, you might have five different answers. My parents are second generation Indians in Kenya. I was born and raised in Kenya, so I feel Kenyan. But I went to school in Canada and lived in London for much of my life. The world has become a melting pot. For us, we do say we are Kenyan because that is where we started, that is where our roots are, and this is where we call home. But at the same time, we have become who we are because of all the different experiences around the world. We have a little bit of the English influence because I went to English schools when I was younger and studied in Canada. Even Kenya has so many influences with these different cultures, British, Arabic, etc. Being able to bring cultures, people, and women together and breaking those boundaries is something that we wanted to show.

In the development of the company, are you looking to attract partners or investors?

My partner and myself are both definitely ambitious, hence Glambition. The sky is the limit. We have a very big growth mindset. Our vision in terms of the next three to five years would be to be available worldwide. We are very open to bringing on strategic partners that can not only offer us financial support, which is not our priority at the moment as we are doing a good job in terms of being able to manage and grow the company ourselves, but partners who can create opportunities and open doors for us as well. Geographically, there are a lot of different regions that we really want to expand into. Being able to connect with and bring partners onboard in different parts of the world is something we would be very interested in.

What is your product visibility? Is there a problem with fake products?

We are working with some of the best labs in the world that have had a lot of experience working with the bigger brands. Our formulas are personally formulated in Italy and Hong Kong. We package in China. We want to make sure that our packaging is top notch without raising our prices too much. Our products are all cruelty-free, everything is certified and tested with different global inspection bodies, such as SGS and Intertek, as well as locally with the Kenya Bureau of Standards. Our products are lead free and will not harm you. One problem that we do face in Kenya is the availability of fake or counterfeit products. This is something that the market is still open to because Kenya is a very price sensitive place, especially when it comes to beauty. It may not necessarily be the fault of the consumer but may just be what they can afford at the time in terms of their out of pocket expenses. There is that option of being able to get something at 1/8 of the price so you will see duplicates and counterfeits of global brands available and people still go for that despite the fact that they know it is not very good for them. Something we do pride ourselves on and something that we do want to promote, not just as Canvas Cosmetics but with all the other reputable brands in Kenya, is that “cheap is expensive.” Being able to invest in a good quality lipstick that lasts, is good for you, and is not harmful is something that you should see as the right choice for the future. Better to save yourself now than to save a few pennies.

What are your CSR activities?

For us, CSR has always been something that is very big in our vision. Pinpointing exactly what we want to focus on is something that we have not done yet because we are a very young brand. A lot of our cost and expenses and focus is going into growth, expansion, R&D, product development. At the same time, though, female empowerment is close to our heart and fits really well with this product. These days, you do not just wear makeup for others, but for yourself, almost like a war paint. For example, our color Rumba is a bright red and is something that you can wear and feel very bold and confident about yourself. Self-love and other aspects like mental health and encouraging women are things we want to focus on. Something we really want to go into is mentorship. Having started this company ourselves and being a woman in business, I want to be able to share my experiences and guide women and give them the courage to actually go out there and do it. A lot of women may not have the resources and support or the confidence or courage in themselves and they get stuck in a bubble. This brand came out of nowhere and no one expected it. We said we would give it a shot and we had faith in ourselves to do that. Being able to give women that same kind of inspiration, for women to be self-sufficient financially, and also have that confidence in themselves these days is really important for me.

Project yourself into the medium term, three years’ time. What do you want to achieve?

There are a lot of things that we have on the books. In the very short term, we are working on a lot of product development. We are working very hard on perfecting formulas that are up to international standards, whether it is skin care, complexion products, or other cosmetic products. We have launched in Dubai and we are looking at launching the UK very soon. We want to concentrate on global expansion and being able to take our products across the world so women everywhere can enjoy them. On a deeper level, in terms of our company and our vision, we really want to have more of an impact in society and mainly with women, not just female empowerment, but using our makeup and our messaging and our platform to really spread awareness about different topics and initiatives that come up in the future. Also, being from Africa, something that is really close to our hearts is the wildlife. Being able to raise awareness and conservation of wildlife and really preserving nature and the environment is also something that we really want to do. Hopefully, in the next five to ten years, we can move towards being a very green company, looking at things and being very critical about everything from production to our packaging, being able to make sure that for things like waste everything is recyclable, and being very environmentally conscious of how we actually produce and sell our products. At the moment, as a small company, it cannot be our immediate focus, but we are really focusing on getting our products right so our customers continue to trust us.

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