A mother-daughter duo on a mission to revolutionize eco-friendly makeup

Barbara Dufour and her daughter Zahra Kihel have turned something useful into something delightful. Sharing a common passion for makeup and natural products, the family duo decided to turn it into a business, which is growing day by day. Already, after just one year, one of their products stood out at the Clean Beauty Awards, winning first place in the eye products category.

These are the kinds of products Zahra Kihel had long been searching for. Too often, the makeup she found on store shelves contained aluminum or microplastics. And when she finally did find something natural with ingredients she approved of, it often failed to deliver the performance she expected.

Zahra recalls one particularly embarrassing moment when she thought she had found a great eco-friendly lipstick — only to discover it had ended up on her teeth without her realizing it.

“I was so embarrassed. That’s when I told myself: ‘I want better.’ That’s when I started learning about product formulation, doing my own trial and error, and gradually, things got better,” said Zahra, who holds a degree in Business Economics, during a video interview with Le Quotidien.

Zahra and her mother Barbara have been working on this project since 2022. Zakiella was officially launched a year later, in 2023. Since then, the duo has been developing and marketing natural products made with clean, eco-conscious ingredients.

The Zakiella project was born in Ontario, but recently moved to Saint-Henri-de-Lévis, Quebec. Barbara wanted to be closer to her family and her native region, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.

Many Trials
Getting into cosmetics production isn’t easy. The two entrepreneurs had to run numerous tests before finding formulas that delivered the desired results.

“In the past few years, we did a lot of experimenting, especially with lipsticks. There are so many technical challenges — yes, it has to look good on the lips, but there’s also the mold. We had to adjust temperatures, pouring methods, and more. We did a lot of research before arriving at a result that worked for us,” explained Barbara Dufour.

At last, they’re ready. And the feedback has already been encouraging. For example, a woman who couldn’t find suitable products after undergoing laser eye surgery — which left her eyes very sensitive — wrote to the duo to express her satisfaction at finally finding an eyeshadow that worked for her. Another client, who suffers from many allergies, was finally able to wear lipstick again.

“It’s stories like these that motivate us to keep going,” said Zahra Kihel.

A Clean Beauty Awards win was also a highlight for the duo, who see the prize as a meaningful mark of recognition. The Clean Beauty Awards celebrate North American companies each year that innovate and stand out with products made from eco-conscious ingredients.

The entrepreneurs behind Zakiella have big ambitions and hope to carve out a place in the Quebec, Canadian, and U.S. markets. They also hope to see their products available in retail stores one day.