Walk into a mall in major cities like Lagos, Port Harcourt, or Abuja, and you will see makeup studios, spa chains, and shelves stocked with homegrown brands built for our climate and our skin tones.
Behind this growth are entrepreneurs who started small, often with a single kit or a tiny counter, and turned their ideas into trusted companies.
They produce high-quality products, offer training schools for young makeup artists and estheticians, and establish retail networks that reach customers both online and in-store.
Their work creates jobs, grows local supply chains, and shows the world that African beauty can compete anywhere.
Here are 5 Nigerians leading real change in the beauty industry:
1) Tara Fela Durotoye — House of Tara
Often credited with professionalising makeup in Nigeria, Tara built House of Tara into a full-stack beauty business: studios, an academy, proprietary product lines, and a national salesforce.
Her brand has been profiled globally and used as a business case study, highlighting firsts such as Nigeria’s first bridal directory (1999) and a pioneering makeup school.
By 2019, House of Tara reported 270 products, 23 stores, 14 beauty schools and 10,000 reps across Africa , evidence of a scalable, talent-creating ecosystem.
2) Oke Maduewesi — Zaron Cosmetics
A banker turned operator, Maduewesi built Zaron into one of Africa’s best known colour cosmetics brands, now a group that includes Zaron International, Zaron Cosmetics and Skin by Zaron.
Zaron’s growth playbook, local market insight, price value balance, and distribution depth have made it a staple on counters across West and East Africa, with the founder widely profiled for transforming a post-banking career setback into a pan African brand.
3) Banke Meshida Lawal — BMPro
A celebrity makeup artist who turned craft into commerce, Banke scaled BMPro from services to a product and training brand with award-winning recognition and long-running category influence.
Her accolades (including industry awards) and public profile underline how BMPro helped set quality benchmarks and created an aspirational path for pro MUAs to become founders.
4) Joycee Awosika — ORÍKÌ Group
ORÍKÌ blends skin and hair products rooted in African botanicals with an expanding spa network and a training institute that professionalises wellness talent.
The brand’s ambition, hundreds of franchise and company-owned spas, plus recent growth efforts, shows a push to formalise and scale Nigeria’s spa and beauty services economy while exporting made-in-Africa formulations and standards.
5) Bukky George — CasaBella (and HealthPlus)
Through CasaBella beauty retail (and HealthPlus pharmacies), George built one of Nigeria’s most recognisable beauty and wellness retail footprints, drawing institutional capital to scale.
Her selection as an Endeavour Entrepreneur and an 18 million dollar private equity investment into HealthPlus (which houses beauty adjacency) underscore her role in modernising organised retail and widening access to global and local beauty brands.