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Stories by Bimbola Oyesola
Hair cream as a beauty product is one of the essential products that both male and female cannot do without. Hair cream provides moisture to dry or damaged hair from the roots to the very tips, repairing and protecting against weather damage, dryness and brittleness. It also absorbs quickly and completely into the scalp to rehydrate without clogging pores. It is particularly beneficial for processed and heat-treated hair. It is an excellent treatment for dry scalp. It restores luster to damaged hair.
The product is used by the female irrespective of their age to keep their hair lustrous.
The hair, especially that of a woman needs special care and attention to keep it in good shape and make it look vibrant continually. That the hair is the beauty of a woman is no exaggeration and every effort must be put in place to protect the hair.
Hair cream production business in Nigeria can be quite lucrative considering the teeming population of people that need the product.
Out of the 180 million Nigerians, a large proportion cannot do without rubbing hair cream, while it constitutes a part of beauty routine for others. Just a percent of the 180million Nigerians patronising a hair cream product line will mean outright business success.
As a matter of fact, those already in the business are already making loads of cash and there is no reason why anyone cannot take advantage of this business opportunity.
One can cash in on this by going into the production of hair cream on a small or large scale and both entail the same procedure. The fortune that can be made from this enterprise is unimaginable.
However, a good quality hair cream is produced through a combination of four basic chemical inputs. The ingredients that clearly distinguishes one hair cream from the other are the fragrance and the colours.
Hair cream is also a business that little or less capital is required to start.
It doesn’t even require a business premises or shop as it can be done and packaged from home. A lot of would-be entrepreneurs who desire to be self employed and employ others, rather than wait for white collar jobs are encouraged to go into this line of business.
There are however some basic steps required to succeed in this line of enterprise and these include:
Target audience
This is very important when it comes to producing your own hair cream. You need to know very well who are your target audience and where you can find them.
Since you are going to produce hair cream, your target audience should be saloon owners, beauticians, barbers and the likes.
Marketing
This has to do with places where you can sell your hair creams.
When you meet people and talk about your products and what it does, individuals will want to test your product and once they are satisfied they will serve as customers of the product. Other places where hair creams can be sold include hair making saloons for females in Nigeria where hair making business are done, barbers shop, markets e.t.c
Branding/packaging
Before you start producing, it is pertinent to have your own personal brand, so that it will serve as the means which your prospects will identify your products amidst other brands. Packaging is also important, do package your hair cream well after production.
Publicity
If you offer high quality products, you will get more customers who will also recommend your products to their friends. Thus, your patronage level will increase significantly and your sales revenue and profits will be boosted. To even get more buyers consider advertising your brand on newspapers, magazines, radios, televisions, banners, posters, billboards, handbills and through many other cost-effective mediums. Give periodic incentives and discounts to your customers from time to time to sustain their interests in your products; motivate and encourage them to stick to you always.
Fragrance
This can serve as an added advantage on the list of what you need to do before producing since customers will have their own taste and choice if they will patronize your product. So while conducting your research, it is important that you find out about this.
Having been acquainted with those basic steps, next is going into the business proper.
The ingredients required include: paraffin oil, beeswax, glass, burner grape seed extract, liquid, petroleum jelly, lanolin, colourant, industrial perfume, container, and jar.
Procedure
•Turn on the burner and place the container meant for the hair cream solution mixture on it.
•Pour a measure of the paraffin oil in accordance with the quantity of the hair cream you are going to produce.
• After three minutes, measure the content of the petroleum jelly in relation to the quantity of the hair cream you are going to produce and add it into the boiling paraffin oil.
•After five minutes, measure and add the lanolin content into the mix and stir carefully.
•Cut the wax substance into smaller sizes and slowly add them into the mixture. Here, you need to exercise patience and let the wax dissolve properly and stir without pause, until you are so sure that the components have circulated well in the mixture.
•After it is all done, remove the hair cream mixture from the burner and keep it in a very cool room temperature till it cools down. Continue stirring the mixture to keep the solution at even.
•Measure the industrial perfume fragrance as you deem fit and add it up to the mixture. This is the solution to give your hair cream the desired smell.
Also, add powdered Vitamin C coupled with drops of extract from grapefruit seed, these two elements will act as preservatives for your hair cream. During this stage as well, add any colorant substance which you so desire to the mixture. Stir and mix continuously until all the added ingredients becomes well distributed and the end product- hair cream -comes out as desired.
Step 8: Finally, stir, mix and pour your fresh produce hair cream into a customized and sterilized jars, fixed your label on it and cap it firmly with a tight-fitting cover. Leave the newly produce hair cream over the night so that the added ingredients can settle thoroughly.
It important that while producing your own hair cream, make sure that all the equipment used were all sterilized, even your hands, this is so because hair creams embrace bacterial contamination easily.
Specifically however, you may use the following measurement for a specialised hair cream for hair growth:
1.Petroleum jelly………1/4 kg
2.Paraffin oil……………..1/2 litre
3.Stearic acid…………….1 spoon
4.Linolin……………………1 spoonful
5.glycerin………………….2-4 spoonsful
6.Colourant……………….as desired
7.Perfume………………….,, ,,
PROCEDURE
1. Put the petroleum jelly and paraffin oil in a dry clean pot and apply heat
2. Add stearic acid and linolin oil, allow to melt,mix together until it blends properly.
3. Add the colourant and stir.
4. Turn off the heat and allow to cool a little (like 3 minutes), then add glycerin and the fragrance. Mix together until it blends properly.
5. Finally, pour into containers of your choice.
ENHANCERS
You can add the following ingredients to enhance the quality of your hair cream:
1. Coconut oil
2. Aloevera gel
3. Jojoba oil
4.Shea butter
This will give you an amazing hair food.
As identified earlier, your potential customers and target audience can also cut across, retail outlets including ladies, students, supermarkets, churches, saloons, hair dressers, fashion product merchants, event and ceremony attendants, hotels, restaurants, local markets, car parks, offices, households among other categories of consumers. Sell your products at good prices and make a lot of money from the business.
You can also make additional money by training other people in this business and charge them participation fees for your lectures and entrepreneurial seminars. Sell your business manuals and other materials so as to make more money from the exercise.
As you get more money from the business, you can expand your operations by seting up a shop in a strategic location, establish branches, build a bigger hair cream production plant, diversify your business.
You also need to register a business name and products with the appropriate authorities, and can take your product a little higher, into the international market scenes, and become a bigger player in the industry.
