#WoolworthsYouthMakers2026: Glolooks, the African hair care brand finding its place on the shelf
That is one of the lessons Refilwe Xaba has learnt while building Glolooks, the African hair care brand she started after struggling to find affordable, plant-based products gentle enough for children and adults with sensitive, eczema-prone skin.
What began as a very personal problem has since become a bigger exercise in brand building: getting the packaging right for a retail environment, understanding what customers actually want, using social media as more than an awareness channel, and learning when a founder needs to stop doing everything herself and start building the business around her.
For Xaba, that evolution has meant moving beyond the question of whether Glolooks makes a good product. The bigger question now is whether she can build the systems, brand equity and customer relationships to turn it into a scalable African consumer brand. Her Master of Commerce background has also shaped how she approaches that challenge, with research and customer insight increasingly informing how Glolooks develops, markets and grows.
From a personal need to a brand purpose
“I was looking for affordable, plant-based hair care products that were gentle enough for adults and children with sensitive, eczema-prone skin, but I struggled to find products that ticked all the boxes. Many contained harsh ingredients, while others were too expensive for the average family.”
That experience became the foundation for the brand's proposition: effective, accessible hair care products made with plant-based ingredients that families can use with confidence.
“Today, every product we develop is guided by that same purpose. We use plant-based ingredients that are gentle on the hair and scalp, and we create products that the whole family can use with confidence. More than anything, I want Glolooks to be a brand that understands real families because it was built from a real family's experience.”
It is a straightforward proposition, but one that has had to evolve as Glolooks has moved from being a founder-led product business into the more competitive world of retail.
The shelf changes everything
In the early days, Xaba's attention was largely where most product founders would expect it to be: on the product itself.
“I believed that if the formulation was good enough, people would buy it. As a founder with limited resources, I invested most of my energy into developing affordable, plant-based products that were gentle enough for adults and children with sensitive, eczema-prone skin.”
Then came the opportunity to get Glolooks onto major retail shelves like Makro— and with it, a rather important realisation.
“Getting the opportunity to be on major retail shelves completely shifted my perspective. I realised that before customers can experience the quality of your product, they first experience your brand. In a busy retail aisle, they don't know your story or your ingredients; they only see your packaging. That was a big mindset shift for me.”
The retail shelf, after all, is not particularly interested in how hard a founder worked to develop a formulation. Consumers make decisions in seconds, surrounded by competing products.
For Xaba, that made packaging less of a finishing touch and more of a marketing asset.
“It made me think much more intentionally about how Glolooks is presented. Our packaging isn't just a label on a bottle anymore; it's our first conversation with a customer. It has to communicate quality, professionalism and trust while clearly showing who the product is for and why it's different.”
“The biggest lesson for me has been that branding and packaging aren't separate from the product, they're part of the product experience. As we've grown, I've learnt to give them the same attention that I give to our formulations because both influence whether a customer picks up the product, trusts it and ultimately comes back for it again.”
The founder has to grow too
There is another transition that often gets less attention when talking about growing consumer brands: the founder has to change alongside the business.
“One of the biggest lessons I've learnt is the importance of working on the business, not just in it. In the early days of Glolooks, I wore every hat. I was focused on making products, packing orders, delivering them, and doing whatever needed to be done to keep the business running. I thought being busy meant I was growing the business.”
But being able to do everything is not the same as building something that can function without you.
“My role is no longer just to make products, it's to build a business that can grow beyond me. That means spending more time on strategy, building relationships with retail partners, strengthening our brand, developing systems and processes, and identifying new opportunities for growth.”
It is a shift that requires founders to resist the temptation to remain permanently embedded in the day-to-day.
“It's not always an easy shift because, as founders, we're naturally drawn to the day-to-day operations. But I've learnt that if I spend all my time working in the business, I don't create the space to think about where the business needs to be in five or ten years. Today, I'm much more intentional about stepping back, looking at the bigger picture, and making decisions that will ensure Glolooks is sustainable and scalable for the long term.”
For Glolooks, then, growth is increasingly about infrastructure as much as it is about product.
Youth Makers and the realities of retail readiness
The Woolworths Youth Makers programme has also played a role in shifting Xaba's perspective from product development to the broader mechanics of building a consumer brand.
“The Woolworths Youth Makers programme has helped me think differently about what it takes to build a sustainable consumer brand. Before this experience, my focus was primarily on creating great products and getting them into customers’ hands. The programme helped me understand that building a lasting brand requires much more than a good product—it requires strong systems, clear positioning, consistency and a deep understanding of the consumer.”
Being exposed to a major retailer has made some of those requirements more tangible.
“Being exposed to a leading retailer like Woolworths has given me a greater appreciation for the level of detail and excellence required to grow in the consumer space. It has challenged us to think more intentionally about our packaging, customer experience, operational readiness and how we communicate the value of our brand.”
It has also reinforced a lesson that runs through much of Xaba's thinking about the future of Glolooks: the brand cannot remain dependent on its founder if it is going to scale.
“It has also reinforced the importance of building a brand that is sustainable beyond the founder. As entrepreneurs, it is easy to focus on the day-to-day demands of running a business, but programmes like Youth Makers encourage you to think strategically about scalability, processes and creating a brand that can continue to grow over time.”
For Xaba, the programme has ultimately provided validation that Glolooks can compete in a larger consumer market.
“Most importantly, the programme has affirmed that Glolooks has a place in the market. It has given us the confidence to see ourselves not just as a small business, but as a growing African consumer brand with the potential to compete on larger retail platforms while staying true to our purpose and values.”
The next three to five years
The next phase is about making that ambition tangible.
“Over the next three to five years, I want to see Glolooks evolve from a founder-led business into a fully established, scalable consumer brand with the right systems, structures and people in place to support long-term growth.”
“From a market perspective, I would love to see Glolooks available in more leading retail environments, including platforms such as Clicks and Dis-Chem, while also expanding our footprint across regional African markets.”
