WHEN Bonolo Matjila and Patience Kunene met during their first year at the University of Western Cape, little did they know they not only were beginning a lifelong friendship but that together they would revolutionise the beauty industry.
The women were at the institution to pursue their LLB degrees when they met, and when they combined their backgrounds and interests, Golden Hour Skincare was born.
The 4-step offering combines an environmentally sustainable product, gender-inclusive skincare kits designed to holistically address targeted skincare concerns, they explained. “The beauty landscape is ever evolving, and conversations around skincare are taking centre stage as more individuals seek to find visibility within this space.”
Speaking about their different backgrounds, and what brought about the production of their beauty line, Matjila and Kunene said the common factor was identifying a gap in the market.
Matjila leads the strategic and operational development, while Kunene oversees tax, finances, inventory management, strategic growth and development, as well as company compliance.
Matjila said: “I’ve always had a zeal for entrepreneurship.”
From the age of nine she sold snacks at school, and at 15 she channelled her energy into child malnutrition. “My team and I created a social venture called Paragon Protein, which sold affordable spirulina products.”
Their mission was to offer low-cost meal supplements to the community and to fund a project that taught students how to grow this superfood in their own homes.
And, their hard work paid off when they won the 2014 Innovate South Africa contest, seeing Matjila being invited to speak at the 2014 Techonomy conference in San Francisco.
In 2021 with her background and passion for problem-solving and value-creation through entrepreneurship, she would come together with Kunene, to create the skincare company.
She spent two years leading the formulation of the company’s first four products, developing the business infrastructure, and raising initial capital.
She said: “Golden Hour Skincare has become a growing brand known for its high-quality ingredients and natural skincare products.”
It has a focus on innovation and sustainability, Matjila said, adding: “My motivation for starting Golden Hour was to solve a problem that I was struggling with personally at the time, which was acne.
“I’ve been a skincare consumer for years and have battled finding products that effectively solved this problem for me, in a simple, effective and financially sustainable way. This might sound impossible, considering the size of the skincare market and the fact that new products are launching literally every day. But I think that was part of the problem for me.”
With too many products across brands, hundreds within each brand, and sometimes tens of products under a single brand offering solutions for the same skin concern. “Capitalism and consumerism have, to an extent, caused brands to lose focus and empathy for the person we’re solving the problem for.”
She said she wanted to quiet down the noise for herself and others and create a simple system that did not detract from the efficacy of longer routines.
And with her background in law, she was able to tackle this issue systematically, by relying on research rather than her own personal preferences.
For Kunene, the entrepreneurial spirit came from her father, whose commitment and innovative business approach she said taught her the importance of diligence and resilience.
“This inspired my ambition to establish a brand that influences people’s lives positively through a simple and holistic approach. My law background, while seemingly unrelated to skincare, equipped me with valuable skills for entrepreneurship, such as research, analysis, and attention to detail. I chose the skincare industry for its growth potential, innovation, and the chance to create self-care products.
“The science behind skincare and its impact on people’s confidence and happiness truly fascinated me. Golden Hour Skincare combines my passion for entrepreneurship and self-care. This journey of research, product development, and building a brand reflects my values of integrity, sustainability, and customer satisfaction.”
She had no specific skincare issues, believing instead in a routine which promotes self-care and skin nurturing.
The launch of the company faced a few challenges, they said, among them being raising capital. They said the absence of sources of pre-seed funding in South Africa forced them to take a while to raise funds.
“We bootstrapped through the first year of development, including the formulation phase of our business. Once our products were formulated, we did not have sufficient funds to get them formally tested, to secure all the raw materials and packaging to manufacture on a large scale, or to finance the operation of the business. In other words, we had four really great products, with no resources to get them in the hands of customers, ”Kunene said.
They overcame this by participating in development programmes that had financial incentives, like cash prizes and stipends, and they used those funds to develop the brand until the point of where it would be ready for investment.
And, from the onset, they wanted their formulations to be inclusive and conscious of environmental impact, and so they prioritised gender inclusivity, and finding high-quality formulations that targeted those concerns rather than selecting products on the basis of gender.
“Secondly, because a lot of brands that differentiate their product offering by gender have little differentiation in the formulation of the product, instead, on the branding, scent and colouring of the products. And thirdly, in our current social climate and the progression of gender identity, we thought it a bit outdated to create ‘for men’ and ‘for women’ ranges,” Majila said.
They wanted to include an environmentally consciousness element, so the ingredients in their products would not have caused harm to any living beings, which meant that they should not have been tested on any animals or derived from any animals.
And then they ensured that they selected ethically sourced, vegan, and cruelty-free ingredients by communicating to their formulation team, that they wanted high-quality ingredients with proven efficacies.
The suppliers needed to have conducted tests to prove that they are effective, and the suppliers certified. “Once suppliers were able to furnish us with these certificates (eg. vegan, GMO free, etc), we were confident in including their ingredients in our formulations.”
Next on their list was minimise single-use plastic waste in packaging. “Consider the process of unwrapping a new cosmetic product – you might need to peel off a plastic seal from a box, open a box, toss out all the promotional product leaflets within the box, sometimes peel off another plastic seal around the bottle, before you can get to the bottle housing the thing you actually bought – the product.
“Our primary consideration throughout selecting our packaging has been considering how much of that packaging is actually essential or serves a function, other than beautifying the product,” their mission statement states.
While packaging had to be aesthetically appealing companies, more than consumers need to be accountable for the amount of waste they produce through selling a product or rendering a service that can’t go anywhere other than a landfill.
They said their product had been well recieved and they knew this as they considered all feedback. “We’ve changed suppliers for our print materials – boxes, stickers – where our customers have noted room for improvement. All feedback we receive from our customers feels like an investment not only in their experience, but in the actualisation of our vision for the brand.”
They spoke of Golden Hour Skincare’s sample kit, which consists of three 15ml products that can be used for a two-week period and which have become a best-selling product. They are also travel sized for existing customers.
They added that they were naturally product obsessed and clear on the impact they wanted to create.