Josanne Hernandez creates a natural way to glowing beauty

JOSANNE HERNANDEZ, 34, wants to help feed the world and keep it glowing. She hopes to do that with her line of skincare products, Glow n Grow Infuse.

The products include anti-ageing oils, revitalising oil and oils to stimulate hair growth. Her products include ingredients such as avocado, black seed, olive oil and vitamin E.

The Woodbrook resident is in the process of registering her oils with the Ministry of Health’s chemistry, food and drug division.Then she hopes to have her products stocked on pharmacy shelves as well as the health and beauty supply chain store Pennywise.

The idea for Glow n Grow Infuse began when Hernandez started thinking about ways to go back to nature and the earth.

“I started researching all of our natural plants and herbs,” she said. Before this, Hernandez worked as a billing clerk at St Clair Medical Centre, Elizabeth Street, Port of Spain, then she decided to enter the world of entrepreneurship.

Hernandez uses the process of cold press extraction to get the oil to create her products.

Berlinpackaging.com says cold pressing uses a hydraulic press to separate the different parts of a fruit, plant, vegetable, seed or nut from its oils or juices. It does not involve any form of cooling or refrigeration. It instead reduces exposure to heat and oxygen which allows for high nutrient retention and taste, it said.

For Hernandez, cold pressing gets the best out of the fruit or product.

She always loved nature, especially as she found when she used products from the pharmacies or beauty shops they did not react well with her skin. She began creating products for herself and her daughter, Jenae Serville, about five years ago.

“My daughter was attending primary school and I would mix my own oils for her skin and her hair. She kept coming back to me and saying, ‘Somebody mummy want to know what you’re using on my skin, because my skin has this natural glow.'

“Then more people started asking. Then people started asking me, and so I began giving people around me the product to use and they started to get the same feedback.

“That’s when I realised, ‘You’re doing something good.’”

Hernandez then did an online herbal course, learning how to mix oils and what could be used on the skin to achieve a desired result. She had also done a lot of research for about six months to a year before doing the course.

Since then she has built a small clientele and sells her products at pop-up markets around TT, like Rootsyardd night market and South Market.

Hernandez usually needs a prep time of about three days to create her line of oils.

She sees Glow n Grow Infuse becoming a “very, very big business in time” because more and more people are now gravitating to natural stuff.

While the "glow" has to do with her oils, the "grow" part of her branding speaks to the products she sells for indoor and outdoor growth, such as plant nutrients and growbags.

She also hopes to get into agriculture and wants to “teach people to grow what they eat because you know what you are going to feed your plants and you know what you are putting into your body.”

The entrepreneur is also now working on building her website and creating an app for her business.

For now, Hernandez can be found at Rootsyardd Night Market, corner Newbold Street and Saddle Road, St Clair. It's a 100 per cent local artisans and crafts market, and is there from Wednesdays to Sundays from 4-10 pm.

Hernandez wants TT to: “Keep that glow on your skin. Stay healthy, stay strong.”