Some hairstylists in Lagos on Sunday lamented that they have been experiencing low patronage recently due to the current economic realities in the country.
They also attributed the lull in their activities to increase in the prices of materials normally used for making hair.
They added that many of their customers have resorted to wearing already-made wigs or having their hair cut low.
Mrs Modupe Alabi, a professional hairstylist in Ogba near Ikeja, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that most of her customers no longer come to the saloon to make their hair.
“They prefer using wigs because they are affordable and easy to maintain,” she said.
Mrs Helen Ozioma, another hair stylist, said that she increased her charges because she was spending so much on fuelling her generator due to lack of electricity supply.
“It’s very challenging to attend to customers when there is no power supply, you need the power to dry and style the hairs as well as make customers comfortable.
“The economic challenge is not helping matters and I can’t boast of attending to six customers in a day, it is really challenging,” she said.
Some women also affirmed that it was expensive to visit the saloon or pay for the services of hairdressers, adding that they have resorted to wearing wigs.
A wig maker, Mrs Faith Victor, said the prices of wigs have gone up now as a result of high demand by women.
She added that this also depended on the quality, length and style.
“Some of these different trending wigs are the invisible lace closure wigs, million twisted braid wig, straight human hair wig, full bouncy human hair wig, Peruvian lace wig and full curls wigs,” she said.
A civil servant, Mrs Shade Adams, said she had to cut her hair because it was expensive to visit the saloon and that she had also embraced the use of wigs.
“Before now, I used to budget between N8,000 and N10,000 for my hair monthly but the recent economic reality has changed everything, I now spend up to N20,000 in a month.”
She said this has affected her other bills and because “I cannot cope, I have to resort into cutting my hairs and bought different styles of wigs which I wear whenever I want to go out.”
