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Zina Adjei started Creative Lookz of Artz at home in 1997 when she ran into the problem of gift giving. She said she could not find gifts that she liked enough to give to her friends and family. As a result, Adjei started making her own custom gifts, which eventually led to her starting the business.

Creative Lookz of Artz is one of the participants in the Sankofa Urban Market, which Patrona Jones-Rowser came up with in 2017. The market, which Jones-Rowser said promotes Black-owned businesses, is open weekly on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Natur-Tyme Community Corner, located at 3160 Erie Boulevard E.

Jones-Rowser said she wanted to help expand the market by not limiting its availability only to the summer. Therefore, Jones-Rowser partnered with Natur-Tyme — which provides the Syracuse community with affordable vitamins, supplements, herbs and healthy foods — for the first time this year to have the market open until May.

Adjei participated in this year’s first Sankofa Urban Market at Natur-Tyme with her two young daughters. She said the Sankofa Urban Market has helped Creative Lookz of Artz — which offers custom made gift baskets, jewelry, novelty items and resin items — by informing her of frequent pop-up events and opportunities.

The market will return to Sankofa Park, its original location, for the summer and hopefully come back to Natur-Tyme for the fall, Taina Black, one of the vendors of the market, said.

Black is an American veteran and owner of Secrets of an Imperfect Goddess. Her business offers all-natural and multipurpose skin and hair care products such as oils, pomades, butters, lotion and more, she said. She learned how to make her own skin and hair care products from her mother, she said, who also inspired the name of the shop.

“My mother, God bless her, died several years back from renal failure. And, to me, she was always an imperfect goddess. And the secrets of an imperfect goddess — the secrets are that you never see the actual scent that it is on the packaging,” Black said. “(Instead,) they’re named after the different fruits of the spirit, so you’ll have self-control, faith, goodness and things such as that nature.”

After years of making her own natural products for herself and her children, who have skin conditions such as psoriasis and contact dermatitis, Black said she felt motivated and inspired through loved ones to start her business and expanded it through the pandemic. She loves sharing her products to help people and promote health, she said.

“People forget that your skin is the biggest organ on your body and it absorbs a lot of things that we buy on the shelves (that) are highly carcinogenic,” Black said. “My own belief is that’s where we get a lot of these different illnesses and diseases from, because we’re absorbing things into our skin that’s going right into our bloodstream, whereas if I have a product that can prevent some of that, why not share it?”

Linda Betts came to the Sankofa Urban Market with her mother for the first time on March 19. But she has known Black as a coworker and friend for a while, she said. Betts supported Black as a tester of her products two years ago and said she has since been a loyal customer.

Betts said her favorite product so far has been the pomade which has helped thicken and give moisture to her hair. On Saturday, she bought one for her mother along with an oil, and she said another one of her favorites is the bath soak.

Many different vendors were at the market last Saturday, including AfricaSyr, Ecodessa, Creative Lookz of Artz and Secrets of an Imperfect Goddess. Courtesy of Vincenzo Hid Arida Suarez

“You can also put them in a foot tub or foot soak,” Betts said. “When I was sick … the little satchel that they come in, she told me to put them in the shower on the floor and let it steam first and then get in, which helped open up my respiratory system.”

Adjei said that the best part of participating in the market was the strong sense of community and family.

“We’re all one family and we support each other at the same time. I might have something that one person may need (or) I can also present to somebody else and say, ‘Hey, this person will be here next week or another place,’” said Adjei. “We (give) sister love, brother love, however you want to look at it is very family-oriented, (which) we grew (to become).”

Published on March 21, 2022 at 11:07 pm