WHY IT'S GOOD TO LOOK GOOD -CLARA KOMOLAFE, MD CLARAS BEAUTY HOME
•Komolafe
Mrs. Clara Komolafe, MD of Claras Beauty Home who plies her trade in skin care, repair and make-up is gathering much momentum in her career. Though a B.sc holder in Banking and Finance, she has preference for beauty business.
She was trained in Ghana and perfected it in Thailand. Her beauty business started seven years ago and has branches all over Lagos.
In this interview, she bared her mind on issues bordering on beauty business.
Pleasures in my business
As some people would say, beauty and fashion business is a big business as everybody wants to look beautiful. Your look tells your personality. When I came into this business, what motivated me is the people's favourable disposition towards me as I am always conscious of looking beautiful. This gave me joy that prompted me to go into the business. I prefer it to other businesses as whatsoever you like doing, you find joy in it. I like the job and I make it part of me.
Business packages
Beauty business is not like pure water business. What I mean is that it is not a type of business that anybody can go into. It takes a craftsmanship and professionalism. In Clara's Beauty home, we have a standard that makes us stand out compared to our business counterparts. We have facial cleaners that when you come out of it, you appear very glow. Our tummy blasting and slimming is natural, not chemically toxic. We don't use bleaching chemical with mercury but toning and beauty routines. In beauty business, we are few and we are looking for more hands, that's why we have beauty academy. I have not covered 10 per cent of people in Nigeria. So, we are still looking for more people to join beauty business. We are saddled with the responsibility to train you to be on your own. A new package at present is what is called make-up sampling. Through this we test our product on you to be able to detect your colour. This helps to use correct products that suit your skin colour. It is a powder that replaces what is called conceiler. Concealer is a chemical enhancer used to conceal all blemishes on your face.
How beauty business promotes economy
As I said earlier, beauty business is a vacuum that is yet to be filled in Nigerian economy. I have B.Sc in Banking and Finance and today no Shell or oil company can tell me they don't need my services. If you don't look beautiful, it will be hard to find people doing business with you. Working on your skin to look more beautiful affords you the opportunity to find business associates to do business with you. One bane of this country is lack of information. About 40 per cent of Nigerians don't know they have to look beautiful or how to look beautiful.
The challenges are enormous. First is the problem of counterfeiting product. When you come up with a product working well on people's skin, what you would see next is counterfeiting products. Second, if you don't travel out of the country, you wouldn't get the right products to use and you know it is not that easy. Also, a beautician must epitomize beauty and to find a mother of three in the business and not lagging behind in any way, is a challenge on its own and what some people might be saying to poison the mind of my husband. I just thank God I have an understanding husband.
Why Clara Beauty stands out
As a Yoruba adage says, whoever wants to give somebody clothes, must be wearing good dresses. As you can see, I'm a mother of three and I'm looking 16 years old. That is to tell you that the business is booming. We have all that it takes to stand out and that is why we are on top.