From the dusty streets of Harare to the glam green rooms of Hollywood, hers was a journey that transcended vistas and visages.
Jackie Mgido, Zimbabwean hairstylist and make-up artist to the stars, was a poor girl in a humble Harare neighborhood with big dreams, an artistic hand and an eye for beauty.
“I did not have an amazing childhood but I had an amazing childhood in my head. Everything that I did was magical and everything that I did, I dared to dream,” says the 42-year-old cosmetics entrepreneur, who worked with Hollywood A-listers such as John Legend, Morris Chestnut, Denzel Washington, P Diddy, Jamie Foxx and Sylvester Stallone, before returning home to start her own beauty brand Vault Cosmetics.
Mgido had moved to the United States 20 years ago hoping to make films, and for a better look at the beautiful faces facing the camera.
“I wanted to understand how they were able to make people look so amazing on camera,” she says.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-31937 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2016/04/Vault_Forbes-2-of-19-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Vault_Forbes-2-of-19.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Vault_Forbes-2-of-19-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Vault_Forbes-2-of-19-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Vault_Forbes-2-of-19-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />
She then enrolled at the Make-Up Designory, popularly known as MUD, in California, where she studied the art and later interned at several Hollywood studios. After spending almost five years meticulously planning her business strategy and her next move, she wanted to start something new but the fear of failure stalled her dream.
For a professional who turned dour to dazzling with her magic make-up wand, she was confronted with a new reality back home in Zimbabwe, and then came the epiphany.
“One time I visited Zimbabwe and noticed there was something missing, women were neglected, I looked at so many beautiful women but a lot of them were really dark and could not see their beauty, so I decided to do something to enhance their beauty,” says Mgido.
That was it. She launched her own line in 2012 but suffered major setbacks, even losing a staggering $60,000 in the first six months, of the $100,000 she and her husband had invested in the business.
“If it was not for my husband, I would have given up. What motivated me to continue is that I have a gift and it’s not about me. This is what I am supposed to be doing in life, touching lives through make-up.”
Vault Cosmetics is available in Zimbabwe’s cities and has branches in the US, UK and now South Africa. She says her brand is worth over $5 million.
Last year for the Emmy Awards, Mgido made up awards host and Glee star Jane Lynch, and has also been contracted by Food Network to do on-set make-up for celebrity chefs including Alex Guarnaschelli, Duff Goldman, Tyler Florence and Cat Cora. Last year, she was awarded Female Entrepreneur of the Year for her start-up business at the African Women Awards.
All her products are made in the US, but she is currently in Zimbabwe setting up a manufacturing company. Her biggest challenge has been getting the product to the people. Zimbabwe’s import laws and taxes have made things tough for her, she says, but she’s currently in talks with revenue authorities and hopes they will appreciate her desire to invest in her home country. Mgido has also invested her hard-earned dollars in Zimbabwean communities, opening windows of opportunity for many young women. Her make-up academy in Harare is training young artists passionate about learning more about the beauty business.
With the right investors, she intends expanding her business in Southern and West Africa, her targets being Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Kenya and Nigeria.
We meet her in Johannesburg on a recent visit to expand her business.
“I came to South Africa because I was told I could not and would not be accepted, knowing perfectly well that every woman has one goal and that goal is to be loved and seen, I had to bring Vault to South Africa.”
And this, she says, is only the beginning, with an excitement no greasepaint can conceal.

Vault_Forbes-18-of-19

The Artist Changing The Face Of Africa

Renowned Nigerian public relations executive Bukky Karibi Whyte has, through her business, The Bobby Taylor Company, represented top local and international brands and managed some of Nigeria’s leading public personalities. She is a regular fixture at some of the country’s acclaimed social events. FORBES WOMAN AFRICA got Karibi Whyte to take a morning off her busy schedule to meet 22-year-old Nigerian celebrity makeup artist, Theodora Mogo, whose company, Dorrane Beauty, counts corporate divas and media personalities such as Toke Makinwa, Mo Abudu and Seyi Shay among its clients. As Mogo worked her magic with the brush, beauty and banter resulted.
Bukky Karibi Whyte
PR professional
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29737 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-69-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-69-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-69-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-69-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-69-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-69.jpg 1023w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Q: Are there enough women in public relations in Nigeria?
A: The industry has undergone feminization globally. Women run most independent PR agencies I know in Nigeria. Women pay more attention to detail.
Q: Tips for being a successful PR executive?
A: It’s important to believe in the brand you represent. Understand your clients’ target audience and be persistent.
Q: The brands you have managed over the years…?
A: Estee Lauder, M.A.C Cosmetics Nigeria, Fela! On Broadway, Walt Disney Africa, D’banj etc.
Q: Why are more international brands penetrating the African market?
A: It’s due to the confidence in the African market. It’s not news that we have a strong appetite for international brands. Africans are some of the top travel consumers too. The brands have noticed we are one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and they want to be a part of that.
&nbsp;
Theodora Mogo
Makeup artist
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29734 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-91-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-91-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-91-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-91-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-91.jpg 682w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
Q: The best part about your job is?
A: Making my clients smile. I come across a lot of people from different backgrounds. It is really motivating for me, when I can, through my makeup, to help them be who they want to be. At the end of a job, when my client picks up the mirror and grins from ear to ear, that’s my greatest high.
Q: What does makeup represent to you and the African woman?
A: What makeup does is project your inner beauty. As humans, once we feel there has been work done on us, we feel transformed, renewed, confident and flawless. Makeup is the little magic wand that reminds us that acne, or an overbearing boss, does not undermine the beauty within us.
Q: How did you get into this business?
A: I have been obsessed with makeup since I was a young girl. I have always been fascinated by how creative the art is – using a human being as a canvas, working your magic and transforming them.
Q: Are African women purchasing more African products as opposed to international brands?
A: As Africans have only started to embrace makeup, this limits the number of local makeup brands in comparison to the international brands; which in turn makes it inevitable for the bulk of the products purchased by African women to be international brands. Thankfully, there are certain brands proving us wrong. Another important factor is pricing. The average woman here does not understand why she should pay the same amount (sometimes even more) for an African brand when she can get a bigger name for the same price or less.
Q: How expensive are good makeup products in Africa?
A: Makeup products in Africa are pretty pricey. Thankfully, there are drug store products that are affordable in comparison. The average woman will need at least $300 for a full starter kit.

FORBES-BOBBY-TAYLOR-26

Her Brush With Fame

It is a hot day in Lagos when we talk and yet you can feel the chill when Eryca Freemantle tells you of her worst day that left her body crushed and mind shattered. It was very cold on that day; December 14, 1990, in Brixton, London. A raw wind gnawed into Freemantle’s cheek as she tried to keep warm at the pay window of a busy petrol station. She knew how cold the streets of the capital could be as she was born in London of parents who emigrated from Jamaica in the 1950s.
“I was putting petrol in my car. I walked over to the kiosk to pay for the petrol and a lady came in with a Volvo Estate car and instead of putting her foot on the brake, she put her foot on the accelerator and made me into a human sandwich between the kiosk and her car,” says Freemantle.
“The glass from the kiosk shattered across my face. My body went into shock, my hair fell out there and then and my left leg was broken in five places.”
By cruel, or as it turned out, fortuitous coincidence, Freemantle’s father was near where his daughter lay in agony.
“My dad happened to be across the road in the pub, the Angel in Brixton, having a pint and he came out because there was a crowd around me. Someone had said to him: ‘A woman has just got run over at the petrol station. He had turned around to say: ‘Stupid. How can anyone get run over at a petrol station?’ At the same time, his left leg started twitching, he told me later.”
When the cold realization set in, Freemantle senior was beside himself with grief.
“He went over to have a look and saw me lying on the ground. He went into shock and started screaming. Everyone kept on saying ‘She’s dead, she’s dead!’ And he said: ‘God, why have you taken my only daughter?’ and in my semiconscious state, I could hear him. My father and I were very close and I remember thinking I don’t want to upset daddy, I have to get through this.”
Within minutes the ambulance came to take Freemantle away.
“My hair was on the ground and my dad had picked it up and put it in his pocket. He followed the ambulance to the hospital in my car. I was taken to the King’s College Hospital in South London, where they informed my mother. She was told they’d have to amputate my left leg. My dad said: ‘No way, before you amputate her leg, you will have to cut mine off.”
Freemantle spent months in hospital, luckily the surgeons did not amputate and she was left to heal. On release, she underwent physiotherapy every day for two years as she learned to walk again.
“I was also told I would also have a crooked walk,” she says.
Doctors told Freemantle her hair would never grow back again. For a while, the scars meant she had to cover her face. It was then that the demons of her traumatic childhood, at a tough London school, crawled from her subconscious and bared their teeth.
“I had been called ugly while I was at school and had always been teased about my looks. So, when this accident happened to me later, I took that as confirmation of all the things I had been called by the bullies at school,” she says.
Freemantle’s parents could not get her out of the house for nearly two years. Her scars held her prisoner.
“Now, this was the early 1990s, when there was no make-up for women of color and what was available was Derma-blend. I however went out and got some mud which I mixed with some water and put all over my face to cover my scars—that was my first ever encounter with make-up. Of course, that only lasts for so long but that gave me a bit of confidence, even if it was only for five minutes,” she says.
“My parents noticed  my new interest and thought it might be a good idea to send me to a make-up school, which was an idea that was frowned upon back then, in the West Indian culture, as you’d rather become a doctor or an accountant.”
Freemantle went to college to learn the trade and passed with distinction. She completed teachers’ training and the next thing she knew she was writing make-up classes for London College of Fashion. Her courses were endorsed by the British Association of Beauty Therapy and Cosmetology.
One day, the newly qualified Freemantle was invited by a friend, who was a model, on one of her photo shoots.
“When I got there, I immediately knew I could do a better job than the person who was working on her. I ended up doing her make-up and there was someone there from Island Records, who engaged me on the strength of my work at the shoot. Before I knew it, in a week’s time, I was doing celebrity make-up for names like Seal and Soul to Soul, Loose Ends. Whitney Houston would come into London a lot and I assisted her make-up artist,” says Freemantle.
“Seal was lovely, he used to wear his hair on his face because he used to have locks. He’s a very intelligent man, who was ahead of his time. I understood why they asked me to do his make-up, as he also had some scarring on his face.”
A pharmaceutical company, which had heard Freemantle’s story, approached her to create a make-up range. She said she would get involved only if it was a range for women of color. That is how Keromask was born.
Nearly a quarter of a century after the crushing accident that changed her life, Freemantle is in Lagos setting her sights on the world’s great emerging markets in Africa.
“There are many brands that are afraid to enter the market as they don’t know anyone on the ground… Africa is huge and many brands are looking to come in here presently. I see the biggest markets for make-up in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa,” she says.
“Training is the way forward. In Lagos there are 500,000 make-up artists. A high proportion of them are not trained or are self- trained. So, there is scope for certification and international recognition.”
Anyone with the courage to claw their way back from being a shattered heap on the cold stone floor of a London petrol station is surely worth listening to.

Tag: Make-up

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Artist Changing The Face Of Africa

Her Brush With Fame

Bloodied, Scarred And Unbowed