In an African beauty landscape historically dominated by imported legacy brands and unverified quick-fix formulations, Potio Beauty emerged as a refreshing, science-led disruption. Founded in Ibadan in December 2025 by digital strategist and entrepreneur Victor Ehindero, the direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand was born out of a stark observation: foreign skincare products, while popular, were rarely formulated to withstand West Africa’s unique climate or meet the specific needs of melanin-rich skin.
Built around four targeted action ranges, Clarify, Hydrate, Restore, and Enrich; Potio Beauty rapidly proved its market thesis, serving over 8,000 customers within its first nine months. By combining local raw material sourcing, conversational WhatsApp commerce, and a hyper-agile feedback loop, Ehindero has built more than just a skincare line, he has established a trusted movement focused on long-term skin barrier health and radical price transparency amidst macroeconomic volatility.
In this exclusive interview with BusinessDay, Ehindero breaks down how Potio Beauty scaled its supply chain to meet explosive demand, why authentic local insights give indigenous brands an edge over international giants, and his vision to position melanin-focused skincare as a global standard rather than an industry afterthought.
You launched Potio Beauty in Ibadan in late 2025 after observing people rely heavily on imported skincare. What specific limitations did you see in those international products when applied to melanin-rich skin in the West African climate?
One of the major limitations around this, was the majority of these products were not formulated with melanin-rich skin in mind. Our climate and weather conditions are so tailored to us here that it needs very specific formulations or you just keep treating the same thing.
Your core lineup spans four distinct actions—Clarify, Hydrate, Restore, and Enrich. How did consumer insights around common concerns like hyperpigmentation and acne shape the specific formulation and development of these four ranges?
First, we interact with our customers and ask the most important question. ‘What skin concern are you experiencing?’ From our data, over 80 percent immediately describe Hyperpigmentation or Acne. Shaping our formulations around these was a no-brainer.
Serving over 8,000 customers in your first nine months is a significant milestone for a young D2C brand. What operational and supply chain adjustments were necessary to handle that rapid initial surge without sacrificing product quality?
With that amount of scale, we had to draw up a supply chain forecast for our busiest cities. We mapped out our most ordered products and created buffers. This helped us in cases of order surprises. But this wouldn’t be possible without help from our distribution.
Given your background in digital marketing and WhatsApp commerce, how did you turn conversational channels into a primary engine for customer acquisition and retention compared to traditional e-commerce funnels?
We allowed people to do what they do best on platforms like these, which is talk. And we listened. To a very large extent, customers want to talk about their concerns and feel heard. This genuine concern to help won a lot of people over.
In an industry rife with quick-fix bleaching claims and unverified formulations, how does Potio Beauty build credibility around safety, skin barrier health, and its tagline, “Skincare That Actually Works?
We had to do a complete re-education even as a new brand. From top to bottom. Educating our customers on their skin conditions, what to buy, how to use, what to expect, and the results timelines. This extra effort built trust in the customer’s mind. And when the products worked, it just kept them rooted with us
How do direct conversations and feedback loops with your early customers directly influence product tweaks, batch iterations, or future line extensions?
Our early customers are part of our product-tester pool. Potio was built as a feedback machine. We log every piece of feedback we get into our day and then sort it based on priority, because at the end of the day, we are making these for them. Potio has made 2-3 iterations, which were largely based on our customers’ feedback.
Competing with Imported Giants: Established international brands hold massive market share across Africa. What is Potio’s strategy for competing against foreign legacy players on home turf?
Our key strategy and our biggest edge is leaning heavily on our authentic insights into the market we are serving and the clinical performance of our products. We are armed with such a combo that is hard for most brands to get right in the first few months of operations. We just want to keep making skincare that actually works for our type of skin, and we will use every opportunity to keep showing that.
Operating a manufacturing and D2C business in Nigeria comes with macro uncertainties like currency fluctuations and raw material sourcing. How do you maintain accessible price points while keeping margins viable?
We locked our operations and sourcing to almost 80% local. We understood that what makes a Nigerian customer buy and keep buying is stability in prices. This means they mentally have you in their budget. This, in turn, is affected by a lot of reasons. So we made sure setups (the ones we could control) where we had to rely on imports or currency exchanges are reduced to the bare minimum.
As you look beyond Ibadan and Nigeria, what are the primary regulatory, distribution, and localization hurdles to expanding Potio across broader African and international markets?
Our biggest hurdle in expanding beyond Nigeria is mainly distribution at such scale. Right from Day 1 of the business, demand has always outweighed supply, no matter how much supply was created. The ability to establish a supply chain that doesn’t break will determine if we can expand into the biggest markets internationally. I’m confident in what the entire Potio team is doing. We definitely can pull it off.
How do you view the rise of African-founded beauty brands globally, and what role do you see Potio playing in redefining how the global beauty industry views melanin-focused skincare?
Personally, it’s a beautiful development, and every African-founded beauty brand breaking through globally is a success for all. For me, Potio is really creating permanent fixes for customers with longstanding skin concerns. What this does is set the global beauty industry straight. Melanin-focused skincare is not an afterthought; it’s the standard.
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Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha is the Aviation Correspondent at BusinessDay Media Limited, publishers of BusinessDay Newspapers.
She is also the Deputy Editor, BusinessDay Weekender Magazine, the Saturday Weekend edition of BusinessDay.
She holds a BSC in Mass Communication from the prestigious University of Nigeria, Nsukka and a Masters degree in Marketing at the University of Lagos.
As the lead writer on the aviation desk, Ifeoma is responsible and in charge of the three weekly aviation and travel pages in BusinessDay and BDSunday. She also overseas and edits all pages of BusinessDay Saturday Weekender.
She has written various investigative, features and news stories in aviation and business related issues and has been severally nominated for award in the category of Aviation Writer of the Year by the Nigeria Media Nite-Out awards; one of the Nigeria’s most prestigious media awards ceremonies.
Ifeoma is a one-time winner of the
prestigious Nigeria Media Merit Award under the ‘Aviation Writer of the Year’ Category.
She is the 2025 Eloy Award winner under the Print Media Journalist category.
She has undergone several journalism trainings by various prestigious organisations.
Ifeoma is also a fellow of the Female Reporters Leadership Fellowship of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.
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