By Sainabou Sambou
Oumie S. Bah is a young entrepreneur, BSc holder in Management and Human Resources, certificate holder in Trichology, and currently pursuing Maters in International Procurement.
Ms Bah is a natural hair specialist, consultant, founder and CEO of “S Bah’s organic”, a brand that promotes natural hair products made from herbs and fruits. Her product includes hair shampoo, hair conditioner, hair texturizer, hair relaxer, hair oil and many more.
In this interview Oumie shares her inspiration of becoming a natural hair specialist. She explained that she got the inspiration when she helped her mom grow her from alopecia and posted the video on TikTok and it went viral.
She said after that post people with alopecia started reaching her explaining their conditions to her. “Most women suffering from alopecia suffer from low self-esteem and loss of confidence with lot of societal bullying. Some of these women do come to me with such issues. There is a lady that got divorced because of alopecia; her husband was bullying her. Her story really motivated me to venture into organic hair product,” she said.
She said when her husband flew her to France, she started doing more research and work on the organic products. She mentioned that she met with a dermatology who agreed to guide her on making organic hair products.
The hair stylist narrated that she started growing her own hair in 2012 and started it as a business in 2015. In addition, she revealed that she started the business at home growing her mom, friends and other people’s hair, and also bought equipment needed for her work. Ms Bah orders her raw materials from Ethiopia, Guinea, France and other countries.
“At the start of my business I sold my products in The Gambia but as the business grows I sell them outside Gambia - in France , USA, UK ,Italy , Sweden, Senegal ,Sierra Leone and Nigeria,” she revealed.
Citing some of her challenges the young entrepreneur said the only challenge that she has is that her costumers compare her price of products to others. She lamented that flight tickets are very expensive and that her price cannot be the same as others because she imports her raw materials from outside Gambia.
“I make sure I create employment for people especially dropouts; I train them and I also empower them because you have to have knowledge in what you are doing but due to my busy schedule I stop it for now,” Ms Bah asserted.
