Sometime at the start of this year, I attended an event where I met Barbara in person. Although I knew of her services through social media, I did not know Barbara in person, nor did I know her story. Barbara shared her story of entrepreneurship and dished out some samples of her raw, organic, all-things-good shea butter directly sourced from Ghana. I went home and used the shea butter as a lip balm, but mostly it sat at the bottom of my handbag. Then two things happened. The first was that I ran out of my face cream, so I used some of the shea butter on my face while waiting to get a new one. Within two days my skin gained new life, I looked alive! The second thing was that ‘the virus’ hit our shores and we all had to wash our hands and use hand sanitizer an inordinate number of times throughout the day. The result for my son was that the skin on the back of his hands turned to sandpaper. At first, I used my normal hand cream but nothing much happened. Not knowing what to do I tried the shea butter on the little hands and it worked like magic. We applied it in the morning and by afternoon his hands were smooth and renewed. We both got very excited and started looking for other spots to mend on our bodies. He saw my cracked heels and suggested I apply shea butter to them. The same magical, healing effect was reproduced, so I started using it over my whole body. It hit me that this was healing at work. This natural, ancient, African product is healing, and we can use it in our modern lives to …heal. For me, that reinforces my belief that returning to nature – both the nature around us and within us – to our ancient wisdom and medicine, to the things that our Ancestors already knew and practiced; in essence, returning home to ourselves, is healing. It reinforced my belief that we already have all the answers and all the medicine we need; we just have to tune in and listen and source it. Just like in therapy, everything is therapy.

 

As a result of my experience with Barbara’s shea butter, I have become a big advocate of both Barbara and her shea butter, so I want to share with you a bit more about both of them.

Barbara was born in London, England, and relocated to Copenhagen in 2017. She has been a professional international Makeup Artist for 11 years and a professional Eyelash Extension Stylist for 3 years. After moving to Denmark, Barbara became the owner of Barbara Mensah Beauty Studio. A stylish, cozy, and chic home studio for clients to have Makeup and Eyelash Extension services for those special moments and occasions.  In 2019 she launched her own brand of Organic Shea Butter, sourced in Ghana and distributed worldwide which has been a huge success especially in Scandinavia. Barbara is also the beauty editor for a brand-new publication targeted at the Danish expat community – The International, where her aim is to bring to the masses content about trending products, procedures, services, and advancements within the beauty and skincare industry.

 

I asked Barbara how it all started and here is her story in her own words:

BarbaraMensah Organic Raw, unrefined shea butter has been sourced from a remote northern part of Ghana. When I started my journey of sourcing the finest shea butter, my main focus was making sure that it was of the best quality possible. It had to be unrefined, cruelty-free, and vegan friendly. Shea butter is extremely underrated. There are so many benefits and healing qualities to shea butter. The basic ones being that’s super moisturizing due to its fatty acids and packed full of vitamins A & E. It is anti-inflammatory, skin smoothing, and improves the skin’s elasticity. BarbaraMensah shea butter can be used on the body, face, and hair. It is an excellent natural body butter for babies to adults.

I decided to start my own brand of shea butter to distribute world-wide after I gave birth to my son, he had terrible skin problems, including eczema and extreme cradle cap. Doctor’s wanted us to use steroid-based creams, which I was totally against, especially on such a young baby. I was forced to research and find natural alternatives.

It was actually my Auntie who lives in Ghana who suggested I use shea butter on my son’s skin after hearing about his skin issues we were battling. She sent a 4-kilo care package over to Sweden, Stockholm where we were living at the time. One of the funniest moments was when I opened up the package, I was so surprised as I had never seen so much shea butter in my entire life.

After less than a week of daily use, baby massages, and after bath time creaming of his whole body, with what my friends now call Africa’s cream gold, my son’s skin issues disappeared.  

That was the exact point I started planning how I was going to share this butter with the world. 

 

 

Well, Barbara, we thank you for sharing Africa’s cream gold with the world and wish you continued success in that mission.

 

Bookings for makeup, eyelash extension services, ordering of shea butter and collaborations can be made via Barbara’s social media or website:

www.barbaramensah.dk

Instagram: @barbara.mensah.beauty

Facebook: @barbaramensahbeauty