The decision to leave her native Zimbabwe for South Africa in search of a better life seems to have laid off for Leticia Mupawose who is making significant strides in South Africa's highly tough but lucrative hair care business.
Mupawose is a qualified pharmacologist and trichologist. She left her pharmaceutical job 16 years ago to embark on a journey which turned her hobby into a career.
And she has no regrets about it as she has ttransformed herself into a shrewd business woman of repute.
She started off her career as a hair dresser in the United States were she had gone to pursue a degree in pharmacy. She worked at a salon for pocket money and the love affair with hair began.
Now a specialist in African hair, she has turned a traditional plant called devil ' s claw, or inkunzana in Zulu, into a miracle hair grower. The plant, which grows especially in the rural areas, has been formularised and enhanced with certain oils and is called Feso Africa.
She also owns a hair clinic in the cosmopolitan suburb of Fourways in Johannesburg. The hair clinic is called Feso Regeneration Clinic.
She said after she opened hair salons in South Africa and Zimbabwe, she discovered that her clients hair was falling off and she embarked on finding a solution to the problem.
"When my mother told me about inkunzana and that they used to wash their hair with it I became interested in exploring it. I mixed it with oils and gave it to a customer who saw positive results after two weeks. I added more inkunzana and gave it to others and they all came back with exciting results. I kept collecting data and my main focus was trying to understand what the plant was doing," she said.
The hair care product has been one of her best sellers. It is now available in over 33 countries in Africa, Europe, Asia and the United States.
She now hopes to empower the unemployed through her products.
