MILAN — All the pieces results in shea butter for Menaye Donkor. 

The bubbly entrepreneur and former Miss Universe, Ghana grew up in Accra seeing her mother using the ingredient as a go-to solution for every part. Hence her selection to make it the place to begin of her beauty enterprise, She-y body care.

The brand just opened a pop-up at Milan’s Smalto beauty salon to check the waters of brick-and-mortar retail ahead of a broader product expansion for the primary quarter of 2024.

Donkor’s goal is so as to add facial skincare to the offering, whose formulations are manufactured in Italian laboratories based on raw materials imported from Ghana.

The She-y range includes body creams and scrubs containing as much as 18 percent of shea butter ethically sourced from the country, along with hyaluronic acid, vitamin E and a mix of Senegalese algae extracts. There are also body oils, mixing shea oil with sunflower, argan, jojoba, almond and avocado oils.

Each product category is accessible in 4 scents with price tags starting from 65 euros for the oil to 120 euros for the cream.

In sync along with her philanthropic work, Donkor weaved a charity element in her beauty business. Along with creating job opportunities for ladies within the shea butter production in Ghana, she pledged a percentage of profits from product sales to finance the Menaye School of Hope, which provides free education for youngsters within the country. 

The institution was arrange by the Menaye Charity Organization nonprofit Donkor established in 2004 — the identical 12 months she won the pageant and moved to Latest York to pursue a modeling profession. There she leveraged her exposure to latest social contacts to sensitize people around the problems in her country, before eventually founding the organization to supply free quality education, health care and child development in deprived communities in Ghana with the hope of breaking the cycle of poverty.