Alaffia founder Olowo-n’djo Tchala is continuing his mission to preserve African traditions and empower women on the continent with new beauty and lifestyle brand Ayéya.
Ayéya’s focus on sustainability sets it apart from Alaffia, which Tchala left in 2022. Describing itself a purveyor of ethically crafted goods that bring “economic independence,” the brand’s products, including foaming hand soaps, bath bombs, whipped body butter, shampoo bars, conditioner bars and laundry, dishwashing, all-purpose, bathroom and glass cleaner tablets, are 90% plastic free, according to Tchala. Its prices run from $2.99 to $19.99.
Ayéya extends from personal care products to a lifestyle range featuring baskets. The brand plans to release a new product every quarter for the next two to three years. Powder versions of its foaming hand soap, all-purpose cleaner, bathroom cleaner and glass cleaner are slated to hit the market early next year.
Ayéya’s soaps and bath bombs rolled out to Whole Foods stores nationwide in the United States and Canada last Friday. Its home products will be arriving at the grocer in November. The brand will land in Whole Foods locations in the United Kingdom stores in March, and Ayéya has a line of bar soaps, bath bombs and bath salts exclusive to Sprouts Farmers Market slated for a November debut. The brand is available on Whole Foods owner Amazon, too.
Alaffia, which Tchala started in 2003 with Prairie Rose Hyde, has a long-standing relationship with Whole Foods, and Tchala connected with the grocer last year about Ayéya because he determined the brand and it share values. He says, “Those values are essentially that you have a supply chain that’s slave labor-free and also that you have product that’s clean for the customers who are using the product…You have to align your values with organizations that see things similarly to you.”
Similar to Ayéya, Alaffia began by selling baskets and textiles along with personal care products such as its signature African Black Soap handcrafted by women in West African cooperatives. Tchala is from Togo. He says Ayéya departs from Alaffia in that it has complete control over the entire supply chain.
“This vertical integration from manufacturer to consumer allows full transparency and respect for traditions as well as reinvestment in social impact initiatives like access to clean water and mitigation of domestic violence,” he explains, adding it’s extended “our ethical supply chain, but, at the same time, is creating something new and different with relevancy for today’s world.”
To spread the word, Ayéya’s marketing strategy is pursuing press coverage and influencer collaborations. The brand is currently working with six influencers who Tchala calls ambassadors and expects to increase that number in the coming months. Whole Foods has helped out by creating video on Ayéya’s backstory for its website.
Tchala declined to discuss how much it cost to launch Ayéya, but discloses the brand has received angel investment. Alaffia previously raised over $10 million in venture capital funding, per the financial information resource Pitch Book. New Voices Fund, the VC firm established by Richelieu Dennis, co-founder and former CEO of SheaMoisture, is among its investors.
Tchala says he left Alaffia because its direction was no longer in sync with his conscience. Today, he enthuses that he’s more excited than ever about the “pursuit for human rights” through Ayéya.
“I can take it to the next level because it is about the whole house now,” says Tchala. “It’s not just about your shampoos, it’s also about your laundry. Every part of the house we can be a part of, and that means that we’re going to have a real conversation about how to better our world together.”
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