Hair salon can keep growing (From Basingstoke Gazette)
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Hair salon can keep growing
4:00pm Friday 17th August 2012 in News By Emily Roberts, Chief Reporter
Customer Tina Meyer-Wulff, sitting, with, from left, Dhlonipa Omozuma, Barbara Meyer-Wulff, BCoT principal Anthony Bravo, and Clorethe Hamblett-John
IT WAS an innovative idea – and it may have laid down roots for a future business.
A hair salon dedicated to people with Afro Caribbean hair was set up by two hairdressing students at Basingstoke College of Technology (BCoT ).
The duo were given £10 to start up their own business, and they came up with the idea of running the specialist salon for one day a week, using the facilities at their college.
The salon ran once a week for four weeks before the end of term, at the college in Worting Road, and it is now hoped it will continue as a permanent fixture.
Barbara Meyer-Wulff and Dhlonipa Omozuwa hope to rent space from the salon at BCoT to carry on their business.
Although they only broke even in the first four weeks, Barbara believes that over time, the business has the potential to grow.
The 30-year-old said: “If it takes off, then it can become an actual business.”
Students at BCoT are encouraged to set up businesses using £10 to start with, as a way of learning how to run and manage their own business with support from the college.
They are responsible for the marketing, expenses, buying products, and pricing services or products at competitive rates.
Barbara, from Amazon Close, Kings Furlong, Basingstoke, said the salon offered a range of services for Afro Caribbean hair, including weaving, plaiting, perming, relaxing and conditioning.
She said: “There’s not much like this available in Basingstoke. Eventually, it would be nice if we could work hand in hand with the college and use the facilities, as long as we pay the overheads.
“Afro Caribbean hair is normally quite high maintenance. If there’s a market, it could take off. It will fit in with the college’s diversity.”
