Saloa turns passion into business – the tale of Rosemary Oil   

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By Timothy Inifiri Jnr

A particular hair product has gained a lot of attention both in and outside of the country recently with great number of customers placing orders almost every day.

For Saloa Anilafa, founder of “Home Made With Love”, it took a while to find the perfect formula to make the rosemary oil while employed under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme (PALMS) in 2022.

Out of her hobby and obsession for hair and facial beauty, she started making experiments of mixing products during her free times and fortunately after many tries plus help from a couple of DIY online tutorial videos the Rosemary oil was then made.

“Before selling my product I wanted to make sure that it was effective on others so I started off by giving the oil to my close friends and family members to give it a try”, she said.

Saloa shared that after a while she began to get great feedbacks from her friends and family members which then gave her the confidence to start posting her products on social media.

“So last year 2024, I returned back to Solomon Islands carrying with me the confidence and belief in my product and started selling it online”.

“With more feedbacks that I get from time to time the number of customers also started to increase not only inside the country but also outside of the country”.

Saloa also expressed that she did not expect the hair product to be quite successful this quickly and with her strong religious belief, thanked God for her success.

Other than verbal promotions, she also uses Facebook, TikTok and Instagram for promotions and ads which leads to the hair product now virally known.

With the number of customers increasing comes the challenges with Saloa stating that one of her main challenges currently is meeting the demands of customers not only in the country but also abroad.

“I need more equipment and that’s one difficulty of when having to meet high demands from our customers”.

“Another challenge I am facing right now is meeting the demands from customers outside of the country, and I find it very difficult on how to send my products overseas because I haven’t reached that level of doing shipments and all that”, she explained.

Even with the challenges she faces almost every day, Saloa believes that there are solutions in solving them and is eager to face them one by one rather than giving up.

She also urges young Solomon Islanders like herself who are planning on starting a business to go for it and never give up despite whatever challenges they might face.

“I encourage youths or anyone who might have an idea of making a business but there are things that might be holding you back, my advice is whatever might be your intention, go for it and ignore all the negativity you may face”, she said.

Meanwhile, currently being occupied with her Rosemary Oil product, the Home Made With Love owner also shared that very soon she will be announcing her other hair and facial products apart from her successful Rosemary Oil.