Vanessa Fernandes
Serial entrepreneur Vanessa Fernandes has changed the scope of beauty by empowering women to love who they are with her hair care empire Naya London which provides products for men, women and businesses, whilst also supporting female-founded beauty startups in raising their brand’s profile and her non-surgical body enhancement clinic The Dolls London. With over 15-years in the industry, she is a trusted authority by her clients and is only stopping at complete takeover.
Vanessa was born in Lisbon, Portugal, where she lived until the age of 13-years-old before relocating to the UK. “Growing up, it was really tough for me because my hair type was never celebrated,” she tells WOTC. “And so, I grew up as this woman who was just really obsessed about hair.” When she first moved to the UK, she was shocked to discover that there were separate black hair cosmetics stores for people of colour much like PAKS. “In Portugal, we used to go to the same shops, and you just reached for different products,” she states. “It was really strange for me that I would go to a salon, and they either wouldn't know how to take care of my hair, or they wouldn't even have the products that were OK to use on my hair.”
Aged 19-years-old, a young, zealous Vanessa who was a university student, working three part-time jobs, decided she was going to start a cosmetics distribution company that would cater to all hair types. She was determined that the salons who would usually give her excuses of not being able to do her hair because they didn’t have the right products, could now purchase them from her. “I didn't know anything about cosmetics. I just knew that I liked Brazilian products, so I picked some of the products I used for myself. There was a particular brand that I used to buy every year, in Portugal. I decided to start with that because it was something I knew. I picked the different ranges they had for other hair types that were not the same as mine, just so that I could cater for everyone.”
Vanessa then gathered £1000 through family and friends and placed a small order on VistaPrint for business cards, and spent the summer knocking on the doors of salons. As she didn’t have much stock, she decided it would be more beneficial for her to target the salons based in Central London who had a particular client base. “I would hand them my product and my [Beleza Brazil] business card, telling them to try it.” She had asked each salon to call her if they liked it and dispose of it if they didn’t. “After doing this for a little while, Salon's started calling me back.”
When the business outgrew her bedroom, she set up shop in West Hampstead. However, Vanessa had better enjoyed how fast-paced it had been providing stock to salons, over the slower pace of waiting for customers. At this time, she had also sadly been diagnosed with Lupus and was also completing her Master’s degree in fashion promotion. After undertaking a number of PR internships in fashion, she realised she was much better at selling products, not making them, and so she began supplying salons with products once more.
When she gave birth to her daughter, it empowered her to make a change and use beauty as a tool to empower women. “Having grown up in Portugal, being bullied and feeling insecure about my hair and hiding my body for so long because I just didn't feel beautiful, when I looked at my daughter, all of those insecurities came back because I didn’t want her to feel like that. I just thought ‘if I don't find me beautiful, how can I find her beautiful.’”
Vanessa began advocating for good quality brands, who were small businesses and therefore didn’t have the funding to reach notable platforms. “I had a sales team of 12 girls that were visiting salons and 3 girls in the office; 2 working full-time, one part time, and then myself.” When the global pandemic hit in 2020, she found herself at a standstill, with the business making no revenue due to the worldwide lockdown. “I decided, that OK, we can't sell to the salons, we're going to sell to the end consumer.” With the help of a friend, Vanessa built her e-commerce platform Naya London, formerly Beleza Brazil catering to women, men and children alike, and supporting female-owned brands from Ghana to Brazil, helping to build their businesses and create visibility for them.
She then decided that she also wanted to offer services and having used non-invasive cosmetic procedures for a number of years, she wanted to provide them to busy women like herself who liked looking good. The sector typically came with high price points and was rarely run by women or women of colour. “I've never seen anybody that looks like me working there,” she stated. It was here The Dolls London, her non-surgical body enhancement clinic, was born, offering a range of services from body contouring to hydra facials to muscle toning.
See Naya London’s full cosmetics range via naya.london and explore The Dolls London’s luxury treatments via thedolls.london