Wunmi Obe needs little or no introduction, this is because she and her husband Tunde have made their mark in the music industry, having spent over two decades in the industry and they are still very relevant. But what a lot of people don’t know about this amiable woman is that apart from her music career which happens to be her first love, there is another part of her life that she is also very passionate about. Unknown to most people, Wunmi Obe have been running her Hair Salon, Hair Afrique for over a decade now. Recently, she decided to take her hair business to another level by repackaging the salon via the new state of the art salon now located in the serene neighborhood of the MKO Abiola Gardens in Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos. Her new salon is partitioned into different sections to cater for the customer‘s individual needs. In this interview with City People Fashion Editor BOLA AKINBOADE, she opened up on her hair business and why she decided to repackage the business.
Interestingly, your hair business has been around for over a decade, but most people don’t even know that you run a hair salon. So how has the journey been so far?
I started my salon in 1999, and when I started, I knew next to nothing about salon business. What I had was the desire to introduce something that is totally different from the norms. I wasn’t satisfied with the kind of service out there, the stylist were rude, not courteous, arrogant, because I didn’t have money, they knew I wasn’t going to tip the apprentice that will do my hair, stuffs like that. I didn’t like the discrimination, I didn’t like been made to sit for 3 hours, with no explanation and all that. So I had that desire even though I knew nothing about the business, but I went into it, and let’s say I fell twice and got up again. So it wasn’t like everything was smooth sailing, I fell twice and got up again. Everything picked up in 2003, about 7 years ago and that was when I moved here (referring to her Maruwa Gardens, Alausa, shop).
So how come little or nothing was heard about your hair business even in these 7 years that the business has picked up?
After the first 4 years and I had to move from where I was, I realized that the same thing that I complained about was happening right in my salon. I found out at the end of the day that I was not different, my customers were complaining about the attitude of the staff, that they will come in and find the staff sleeping under the shelf, barely answering them, and all that of that. I was too ashamed to be associated with this; this is not the kind of thing I want to be identified with. I mean, you will come all the way and this is where I will bring you to, I said, no way. That’s why I said to myself, this thing is not worth projecting, it’s not worth me talking about, because even me, what I want to achieve with the salon, had not been achieved. I was just like the rest of them. So I wasn’t happy. Based on that, I just said to myself, I’m going to do in such a way that anybody can come in here, and be comfortable. So I just said, I have another chance as I’m moving out of my old place to a new place, this is an opportunity to take it to another level, and do things differently.
Obviously your new salon is a total deviation from what it used to be, so how did you come up with this fantastic interior décor and all the others ideas you just injected into the business?
When I was going to do it, all I knew was that I just wanted this place to be nice, and compete favorably with the salon down the hall and the one in the next block, so it was just by chance I met my architect/designer in church, Amina Sanusi, she is an architect and interior designer. At that point in time, I was still thinking of how I’m going to fix the salon, so I told her that I had something that I wanted to do, so from church I just followed her to her house to chat, she showed details of what she has done, then we started talking and started discussing. It just happened like that, and then she came and I just told her what I wanted to do, and she took my dream and ran with it, to a place where I would never have considered was possible for me, she just went. She just started coming up with ideas. She is someone that always says, she has high taste, so when she was picking things around, she was just going for the best. I would never have thought of putting chandeliers in a salon, I wasn’t that ambitious, put my florescent light and fix it well. I will never have thought of all the intricate details. I just wanted a salon where everybody will be courteous, efficient and do the job. She kept telling me a dream that I no longer recognized. She kept on saying it, until eventually I started to believe it. So I went ahead with her and said okay, let’s make this thing happen since she had already led the way. And it became like her pet project, something she was so excited about, and that was like an advantage for me, when you are working with someone who seems to have more passion than your own. She took it upon herself to the very last, including toilet rolls, cleaning agents, changed my logo, contacted the DSTV, Plasma TV, I wasn’t thinking along those line at all. After a while I just began to trust her. So I really do owe her all, if I was saying that everything here is all about me, I will be a big liar.
You and your husband, Tunde have made a great impact in the music industry, so what prompted you to start your hair business in the first place?
It was relatively to combat all the injustice in the hands of stylists, the way they are. I hate when people are rude when I have to spend my money, you are not giving me discount and I’m not doing it for free and you keep doing me anyway. Sometimes it may just be the person is pregnant or in a bad mood, I don’t know, I saw it and I vowed that I was going to set up my own salon, that I couldn’t put up with this again and in my own salon, they will never be rude, they will respect each customer, old or young, everybody will be respected and not discriminated against. And that was like my guiding force.
Don’t you think running a salon is like conflicting with your personality, some people might think you are actually confused or what do you think?
Like I said, I have been in this industry for over 10 years, and have been in the music industry for over 20 years. Even before the industry became what it was today, it wasn’t easy, you have to find some other means, to keep body and soul together. But in terms of it conflicting, first and foremost, I’m an artist, ‘leave matter’, even in projecting this, I don’t want anybody to miss it up or get it twisted. This is the side of me that, keeps me in the background. Don’t say I’m going to Wunmi Obe Hair Afrique, I want to hear Hair Afrique period. I want the name to speak for itself. So I’m not going to go out of my way to advertise myself as the brain behind it.
You have been doing this for over 10 years, so has the money started rolling in via the salon.
It has otherwise, I wont even take it to this level, I thought to myself, if I could do it when there was nothing there, I never ran into loss just once, with all the fact that the facility was getting worse and it was not looking good any longer, but the money was still rolling in, it has to be God. You know, I put God first, I never hesitate to give God his own percentage, and I put him in control of everything. So I don’t joke with that, I know that God is my guiding force in all of this. And he has been so faithful and I have not had any cause to complain.
What are the new ideas you are bringing into your business now that you have taken it to another level?
The new ideas as to do with new services we recently injected into the business. Now we do hair treatment, called the Syntonic hair treatment. The ideas is that when you have a woman whose hair have almost been chopped off but she has been glamorizing that with her wigs and all that, now she wants to work on that hair, the new treatment room is where we treat the hair so that she doesn’t need to expose the problem to people around who didn’t even know she had that problem in the first place. We also do all our consultations in the treatment room as all the products are in there; we do everything inside so nobody can see your hair. That is one of the things we introduced. It’s very professional. Syntonic is not what you use in any salon, you come in, you are trained. The distributors actually came here, we have a partnership with them, they professional trained the staffs on how to make proper use of it, how to use it appropriately on customers. We also encourage our customers to book their appointment earlier, so when they come in at the set time, they don’t have to wait. Those are the little things we incorporated
What about the hairstyles, anything different from what you used to do before?
Yes .Before, we specialized in braids, but now, we have added Avant Garde and Bridals to our hairstyles. We hope to also become a major force in that terrain, and also get to be invited to a hairshow where we can display creativity.
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