Why we exist
Beauty Business in a Box® was born from lived experience. Founder Sarah Naylor grew up believing that chaos, scarcity and limitation were normal, until she became a mother and decided the cycle would end with her. Today, the organisation works at the intersection of education, enterprise and social justice, delivering accredited beauty and business training directly into communities, migrant centres and direct provision settings across Ireland. Through short, practical programmes and long-term mentoring, we equip women and girls with the skills, confidence and pathways needed to earn their own income and rebuild their sense of possibility. Our pop-up salons bring generations together. Our interpreters help women starting new lives gain qualifications. Our partnerships connect learners to enterprise supports, further education and employment routes. We do not simply teach beauty, we create economic agency. Because when women have their own money, they have the power of choice. And when the cycle changes for one woman, it changes for her children and her community too.
I Thought it was Normal by Sarah Naylor McNamee
I Thought It Was Normal
I thought that it was normal.
The name-calling.
The shouting.
The “it’s-all-your-fault”.
I thought it was normal
To wear your school uniform on a Saturday,
Swinging off lampposts
I thought it was normal
To get a belt from a busy at maths in the back of the head from your 3rd class teacher
Because you were “stupid”.
I thought it was normal
To meet your so called girl friend at the monkey bars
Beside the football pitch
Covered in broken glass
For a fight.
Flats full of faces
Looking down ,
Cheering.
Whistling.
Waiting for blood.
I thought it was normal
To ring the 999 for help
And for them not to come.
Or to come too late.
I thought it was normal
To walk home
With a tin of fly killer up your sleeve
“Just in case”.
I thought it was normal
To put your name in the book
When you went for the milk
And ten Players
From Mr. Parker’s shop.
I thought it was normal
Not to walk on the cracks.
Not to cry on a Saturday.
Because that was “bad luck”.
I thought it was normal
To “go out and get the smell off you.”
"To be seen And not heard".
I thought it was normal
To have child-bearing hips at ten
And be told
“You got what you asked for”.
I thought it was normal
That you give to receive.
And you Better Be happy with what you get.
I thought it was normal
To work all the hours God sends
Just to stand still.
Until the day
I held my daughter.
And I knew.
The world I had accepted
As NORMAL
Was not the world
I wanted her to inherit.
If I didn’t interrupt it
She would absorb it.
JUST Like I did.
Normal IS inherited
Unless YOU interrupt it.
And motherhood
Gave me the courage
I never even knew I had.
So I began.
Not with money.
Not with connections.
Just with a decision & a mission!!
That My daughter
Would not
Think this was NORMAL.
And now
I sit across
From women and girls.....
With the same eyes I had....
Brilliant.....But tired.
Waiting for permission.
They tell me,
“This is just how it is.”
And I recognise the script.
Because I used to read from it too.
Right now
There are girls in your community
Growing up
Believing the same story.
Believing
This is NORMAL.!!!!!!
But it doesn’t have to be.
Not for my daughter.
Not for theirs.
That
Is why I built
Beauty Business in a Box.
So we can rewrite
What normal looks like.
The cycle ends with me. And the future begins with them. Each women and girl will have the power to say "I Can" "I Matter"
Contact
Help me help these women and girls become the beacons of lights in their communities. Get in touch
00353 86 8651681