The Papaya and Banana Project was born as a female enterprise in this city, which seeks to bring quality cosmetic products and the fight for the welfare of nature to our homes.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Four friends who get together, a lot of imagination, and a goal: to start a business that is healthy, aesthetically pleasing, and above all, fills empty spaces in our province. This is how the idea of creating this project, which is nourished by natural raw materials, was born.
Many proposals appear behind a suggestive name: Papaya and Banana, which allude to two well-known fruits in Cuba and are associated with freshness and juiciness. Also due to its erotic connotation.
"An ecological struggle' is a slogan because we use the word 'struggle' on a daily basis; because that is what life is all about, fighting, and we add to it our ecological effort to not use chemicals and to work with natural products". So says Yamel Meneses Reyes, art historian and founder of the project.
With an excellent performance in natural cosmetics with products such as soap, creams, essential oils, massage oils, masks, and everything that brings together this fascinating world of scents, Iris Cruz Núñez, also an art historian; Yaité Ricardo, a graduate in Accounting and Finance; and the person who gave them the green light for this ecological enterprise, chemical engineer Liz Yanet Santiesteban Ávila, have arrived.
Through the Cuban Fund for Cultural Assets (FCBC, by its acronym in Spanish) they can import from Mexico the glycerin, the basic raw material they work with, which is not produced in our country. The rest are natural elements of the territory that at some point may have a dermatological effect, including aromatic plants and fruits.
Their ideas are not only in cosmetics and soap, they are taking more and more risks to come up with a vintage wine cellar: "We call it that way because it is a rescue of all the products that have been traditionally used in our kitchens, such as mojitos, vinaigrettes, certain preserves, both in sweets and spices. "Our intention, said Yamel, is for it to be in artisanal packaging and pleasant containers, always trying to look for things that are no longer made or have been forgotten.
This is followed by a line of natural interior decoration; that is, dry nature with marine details and some elements of wood and clay.
The product with the highest demand so far is soap, especially the dermatological line, which has among its components glycerin, which is not harmful to the skin; the rest are cinnamon, honey, propolis, sage, aloe vera, red mangrove, male pine, guava...
Among their plans are to partner with people who provide them with certain elements to make their products, as is the case of artisans, who so far produce their packaging, or with those who create products that meet their aesthetic and quality requirements.
With their participation in the National Crafts Fair, in 2021, and the National Crafts Fair Arte 500+, in the province of Camagüey, they proved to themselves the quality of what they offer to the public. These events are their gauges to know what to improve on and continue their progress along this road that is just beginning.
