Taulapapa Maria Leota is sending her textiles and natural balms to Dubai to be featured in the annual World Expo, a six-month festival of business and ideas running from October to March 2022.

It is the first time Dubai is hosting the Expo, and the first time the international event has been held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region. 

It is also the first time Taulapapa is sending her new goods and textiles to be showcased overseas after launching her small company just three years ago.

Her locally sourced balms and ointments, including the customer favourite cold-pressed fetau oil have been selling well locally and she is planning to get KUKI Company audited and ready for export this year. 

The textiles have become a popular source for uniforms and bespoke outfits and she is sending several options to Dubai for display too.

Taulapapa says the Samoa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Samoa Association of Manufacturers and Exporters had invited businesses to contribute to a container headed for Dubai last year, and she initially declined.

But after a bit of thought and a bit of nudging from the S.T.A., Taulapapa redesigned her cosmetics bottles and packaging and is braving the next frontier.  

“The premium range is a beautiful bamboo jar with glass inserts for the balms. The design work is all done by myself and the artwork carved into the bamboo.”

Having displayed her balms and oils before in New Zealand under the Pacific Trade Invest scheme, Taulapapa has learned that the New Zealand market prefers its own locally made cosmetics.

“I don’t think that was beneficial for us but maybe over in Dubai with a bigger audience it will be better.”

Taulapapa started making charcoal balm, and turmeric balms after she and her son suffered severe burns, which healed completely when she applied a local recipe taught to her by a local older woman.

She said neither of them have any scarring at all despite having a “hole” in her chin from a coffee burn.

The textile side of the business started just as a way to create more work opportunities, Taulapapa said. 

All the men who worked for her at Rees Hirage, her other company, had wives with no jobs. So the textile business of painting fabrics to sell began as a way to give them work. 

Rather than do the sewing on site, Taulapapa says she prefers to share the business amongst several local seamstresses, or customers can buy reams of material and have it sewn themselves.

But the impact of COVID-19 has left the textiles and cosmetics businesses down to just Taulapapa herself, with most of the staff now let go or reemployed across the other businesses. She also had to leave her KUKI Company gift shop in Vaivase and shift the store down into Rees Hirage.

“I used up all my savings to keep [the staff] on for five months,” Taulapapa said. “I cried when I let them go.”

She said she hopes Dubai will open up new opportunities for clients overseas.

“It’s all about visibility and hopefully new clients. I have never really showcased my materials before so that’s a new one for us.

“My style is quite unique, so I’d like to hear what the response is over there.”