WHY WOMEN PREFER MALE HAIR DRESSERS

 WHEN you think hairdressing, you naturally think women and nothing more. But that isn’t the case anymore as more and more young men continue to give female hairstylists a real run for their money. am sure you’ve got proofs in your neighbourhood too. Interestingly, these men do not require luxurious shops to steal the hearts of customers. With a make-shift salon of any kind, any female hairstylist who has got a shop near one of them either folds up in no time or branches into other trades to stay relevant and earn a living. It however still remains a mystery how men would become better at dressing a woman’s hair—a business that was traditionally female, than women themselves. Attention to detail: But are they (men) actually better at hair making or is it all in the mind of women who are perhaps thrilled about having the opposite sex touch their hair? Why do customers swarm around them like bees to honey? “I think they pay more attention to detail. That’s where they beat female hairstylists. Women around me prefer them too. If you go to prominent hairstylists for example, you’ll find that they are owned by men and also attract A-list artists and celebrities from across, In fact, one of the best hairstylists in Nigeria today is Ugo Igbokwe and he is male. “One thing you also notice when you visit these salons owned by men is that women would prefer to queue up and wait for their male workers to make their hair rather than let their female workers who are probably less busy, make their hair, A costumer said, Sometimes when they fix your hair, you’ll think you’re wearing a wig because the weavings underneath isn’t pronounced. And then when you pack the hair upward, the whole thing just looks real. I think these guys have studied hair making and seen where female hairstylists are missing it, the fact that these stylists are also of the opposite sex brings in a whole lot of advantages because “They imagine you’re a girlfriend whom they want to look beautiful and then they pick the best style and colour that suits your face. They tell you if a centre or side part will suit you better or not. In fact, they are practically more patient than female hairstylists. In all fairness, while most women spoken with spoke in favour of male stylists, we however ran into a young lady with a different opinion. Thorough professional “There’s nothing special about them a customer said, This guy has a very beautiful shop close to my area and behaves as if he is a thorough professional. I actually had not met any of his clients before giving him a try. But you need to see the hair he made for me. The stitches were already falling out in less than one week and the centre part was looking very wide, the worse is that  she had to pay twice the amount she spends usually on fixing her hair. Pricing and male hairstylists: Without denying that they indeed charge higher service fees, Abuja-based male hairdresser, Adebowale Babatunde, popularly known as Wale Swagger, said that it is because women could be very problematic. “We generally spend more time making each hair. Of course also, you know women will always want to dictate until they get exactly what they want. If we do not charge higher, we might lose the monetary value of hours put into making each hair. So, that’s how we make up for the extra attention and care we give to clients, Another male hairdresser who spoke from Benin City in Edo State, Prosper Amahwu, said he simply brings to play his natural love for beautiful things. “Because I am a guy, I like good things. So when I see a girl who doesn’t look good, I don’t like it. I want her to look good, so, I give my best. Every day, I also try to improve on my techniques to be able to compete favourably in the field. “I’m most particular about finishing. Some people do not understand how to close weave-ons properly. Thus, I focus on that part because it’s what people see first. I make sure that whenever I am closing a parting, I give it all of my time. I look at it as if I am the one who wants to wear that look. As a result, even when I am not around, you find customers waiting for me to come back,” Amahwu. Challenges: But things aren’t all rosy with male hair dressers; many of them suffer sexual harassments and are perceived as gay in extreme cases. It’s actually very common to hear cases of customers making sexual advances at them. Swagger however explained that such challenges depend largely on the location of one’s business and crop of customers. “When I was in Ikeja, most of my customers were runs girls (commercial sex workers). Some of them can entice you when they don’t have money to pay for their hair. But if you have self-control, you can easily tell them to come pay when they have the money. Doing pedicure is even worse. You must have self-control to be able to ignore when a woman’s laps are exposed in the course of you treating her feet. I cannot mix work with pleasure. So, I just had to develop a thick skin.

ugo

hairstylist