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SHEA BUTTER BUSINESS: The Jam Brothers, the teen entrepreneurs behind The Cream Warehouse

INTERNATIONAL PLAY made it out stateside to the legendary Essence Fest in New Orleans for the 25th anniversary.. almost as old as me! Haha!

I've got to admit, I was gassed as I was invited to come out an DJ for the first time, which was definitely one to add to my DJ milestones. I linked up with the G Mannie Fresh, Juvi and more at the "Anything but White" Party.

The Mercedes Super-dome in New Orleans was lit, with iconic performances from the likes of Pharrell, NAS, Mase, Frankie Beverly and more! Master P launched I’ve got the Hook up 2 if you remember the one he did back in the 90s, swear I had that on VHS! For part two, Master P decided to premiere it in his hometown of New Orleans – bringing Hollywood to NOLA!

Mr Play and Mannie Fresh at Essence Fest

An up-and-coming artist by the name of Ray @ray_wimley. Was on the streets of New Orleans doing a cypher freestyle and Common randomly walked by and jumped in.

Essence Fest was a vibe. I’ve been invited out there next year, and I look forward to seeing more of the UK peeps out there too!

My Q&A this week takes a break from music and shines the spotlight on skincare. I was inspired by the smart and creative "Jam Brothers", two young entrepreneurial teenage brothers who have created their own shea butter products inspired by their family trips back home to Ghana. Last month they were stationed at the Tonbridge vegan show and the African market at Spitalfields.

Find out more about them here:

Q: So guys, introduce yourselves

A: We are the Jam brothers – Josiah and Malachi. We're two teenaged brothers, aged 14 and 17, who started our own shea based business back in 2017, which was inspired by a family trip to Ghana. All of our products are handmade and packaged by myself and Malachi, at home.

Q: You're both still in school how did you come up with the idea of your scented shea butter?

A: The idea of our scented shea butter business was inspired by a trip to Ghana back in 2017, where we collected some shea butter for us to take back to the UK. Once we got to the UK, [we] thought to ourselves, how could we generate our own income and we brainstormed different ideas of businesses that we could start. It was at this moment that it struck us that we should start our own shea butter based business as we already had lots of shea butter sourced directly from Ghana.

So we then thought of a name for our business, we brainstormed again many different names, and we choose the name The Cream Warehouse, which I have to give a big shoutout to my brother Caleb for coming up with as we really struggled with thinking of a good memorable name for our business, the Jam brothers came about as my mum used to call myself and Malachi that. My initials are JAM and it’s also an abbreviation for J and M.

PICTURED: The Jam Brothers

Our ideas for scents came about through exploring essential oils and fragrance oils that represent us.

Q: What would you say makes your product stand out from the competition?

A: Our products show the young, fun entrepreneur side of business as well as showcasing the work two teenage brothers can produce when we put our minds to it. Our products have distinctive smells to them. which catch all of our customers by surprise. We’re always asked “can we eat them, as they smell so nice?".

Our products show that shea butter creams do not have to be boring and have simple feminine smells. They can be interesting and have spectacular smells. To name some scents, we use oils containing caramel, vanilla and marshmallow which are very different compared with most other shea butter based businesses. Our products are different as the price is affordable and the product itself is not gender specific, which opens our market up to a wider range of customers. All four of our brothers use our creams and our parents use it also.

Q: How do you balance your venture with school work?

A: We make creams during the weekend and we respond to emails and do stock checks during the week. We also send our products out during the week after school.

Q: What's been the best business advice you have been given so far?

A: If we want to be successful entrepreneurs, we have to work hard in our business to reap the benefits of it.

Q: Where do you see your brand in five years time?

A: We will have a wider product range we would like to see our products stocked in many shops, from barbershops to spas to hair and beauty shops. We also would like to see our brand with a website that takes many orders per week from customers from inside the UK as well as outside UK.

Q: Where can we find your scented shea butter brand?

A: Our website www.thecreamwarehouse.com

Follow them on social media:
Instagram: jamjam.brothers

Facebook: The Cream Warehouse

Additional contributions by Steph D’Sa

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