Renee Q. Boateng: Making style, beauty and confidence accessible to Ghanaian women

It’s 2006, Renee Q. Boateng just quit her job. She doesn’t have a backup plan. Being out of a job didn’t bother her much though. Somehow, her entrepreneurial self knew she’ll figure something out.

During her undergraduate studies at the University of Kent, she’d run a side business making and selling shito.

“It started with my friends coming to my room to eat my shito and saying how nice it was. I thought they shouldn’t be eating free, so I would go and buy jam, throw out the jam, wash the jars, label them and fill them with shito which I sold for £10 a bottle. Thanks to that business, I didn’t have to work at McDonalds,” she tells me, of her earliest entrepreneurial venture.

Growing up, Boateng was always in a world of her own either sketching in her notebooks or recreating fashion pieces. The older she got, the more aware she became of her own sense of style and embellishing her outfits with accessories became her favourite thing to do.

The intricate detailing of pieces designed by her favourite jewelry designer at the time, John Richards reflected the kind of glamour she aspired to and when she started to make her own jewelry, emulating him became her standard.

Closer to home, a strong influence in Boateng’s life was her maternal grandmother, a glamorous Fanti woman, now in her late 80s who “always talked about how a woman should match her bag with her cloth” and would fuss about finding a particular shade of a colour.

Their many shopping trips together gave Boateng a great appreciation of wax prints. Although drawn to the patterns and colours of wax prints, she was conflicted about wearing the kaba and slit for fear of appearing older. She resolved that conflict by adding her modern twist to the traditional kaba and slit.

Identifying opportunities

Boateng started experimenting using wax prints for accessories. Like with everything else, she was her own sample market. A chance encounter with a friend who wanted to buy earrings she had made for herself, gave her the impetus to turn her jewelry making into a business.

She bought herself a little cane basket in which she would put her home made accessories which she sold from the boot of her car. In 2007, after a pep talk from one of her favourite aunts, she opened her first shop in Osu.

In the course of the following year, an intriguing discovery led Boateng on a completely different course, one she had never quite imagined for herself. She had noticed that many of the women she sold to, were always complimenting her makeup.

Requests from people asking her to do theirs started pouring in and this intrigued her. Rather than rely solely on the compliments of her clients to start her new business venture, she went on to study makeup at the London School of Beauty and Makeup and Beauty Base, to get her certification before branching out as a professional makeup artist.

Her investment in getting internationally certified paid off. Her makeup services were in high demand and she became the makeup artists of choice for blushing brides in Accra. Concurrently, she was selling her accessories and had added her very own clothing line of wax print styled T-shirts and blouses.

Not long after that, she took up image consulting. With this new addition to her brand, Boateng came to realise the therapeutic nature of the work she was doing with her clients, “I have spoken to many women over the years and I have seen that women generally have a lot to deal with, some of us are going through so much pain, and have to overcome so much, so when clients come to me to buy jewelry or talk about makeup and beauty products we end up talking about deeper issues and I find myself encouraging them. That's what I do and I can't tell you the joy it gives me to see them leave happier than they came in”.

This realisation inspired her next steps. ReneeQ Chats, a women’s empowerment talk session where Boateng shares her experiences and thoughts on different subjects, launched in May this year.

A lasting legacy

Eleven years in the making, the RenéeQ, brand was born out of an effort to offer women in Ghana a home-grown alternative to their ideas of beauty and style.
Today her shop is located in Labone and offers products and services ranging from fresh water pearls and crystals to makeup artistry and consulting.

As part of her legacy, Boateng is working at becoming a powerhouse for style, confidence and most importantly an inspirational force for women empowerment. — GB