How Marcia Notshe Was Inspired By Her Daughter To Create A Hair Care Brand Called Zoya Naturals
How Marcia Notshe Was Inspired By Her Daughter To Create A Hair Care Brand Called Zoya Naturals. Marcia Notshe is a 34-year-old, mother, entrepreneur and the founder of Zoya Naturals, a natural hair product manufacturing company based in Bryanston, north of Johannesburg. Despite being an entrepreneur, Marcia is also a Bachelor of Arts in Corporate Communications and Psychology graduate.
Zoya Naturals started off as a passion project inspired by Marcia Notshe’s daughter. “Five years ago when I had Ovayo, I realised I had the incredible honour and responsibility of teaching her how to ” show up “ in the world. I wanted her to know that she could be whole, confident and beautiful just the way she was with her chocolate skin and coily hair. At the time we were living in South Korea and there were no products readily available for coily, kinky textured hair so I decided I would mix up some oils and butters to use on our hair.” said Notshe on the company’s website.
On their return to South Africa, spurred on by close friends and family, Notshe took a leap of faith and resolved to perfect her mixes and create a range of natural hair products that celebrate afro textured hair. Two years later Zoya Naturals was born. Zoya is Zoe (Ovayo’s second name) in Arabic and it means abundant life, made of light. Notshe hopes that as her customers use her products they too can show up in their world filled with abundance and life, made of light… because they are.
Notshe has always felt passionate about African women and their unique stories and experiences of the world. She thinks that any business that had anything to do with serving and inspiring black women would have been a perfect fit for her. The decision to go into the natural hair care space was inspired by a need to create a solution for a personal felt need. “I wanted to have a growing and healthy natural hair and above all, I wanted to give Zoe confidence in her personal journey of beauty. I wanted my daughter to know that she can show up to life just the way she is with her large kinky and coily hair because she’s beautiful just as she is.” Notshe told Emelelasit in an interview.
