Hairdresser grows booming business reversing baldness

Muli Musyoka’s love for hair started straight after high school when he decided to grow an afro. But the commercial potential in hair and hair care opened up when a modelling agent requested to use the hair in commercials.

Straight from high school and having to sell second hand clothes and collect garbage for a living, modelling sounded like a good deal.

Mr Musyoka immediately enrolled at the Ashleys Beauty College for a modelling course but tables soon turned when the director of the modelling agency changed his mind regarding contracting him. The young man thus decided to focus on hairdressing as a career.

Confident there was a huge opportunity in the hair market, he enrolled for an online diploma course in hairdressing from a UK college.

Six months after graduating, he stumbled upon a job advertised by Haco Industries, but that demanded years of experience in hair products development and evaluation.

Mr Musyoka knew he had a slim chance of landing the job but he took a leap of faith and applied anyway.

“After doing hairdressing jobs in Nairobi, I felt there was more to it that remained uncovered and unexplored and I had to change careers to learn and find out more,” he says.

At 21 he joined Haco Industries as a hair technician work that involved hair products development and evaluation to ensure only high quality products got to the market.

His work involved travelling wide and meeting people within the hair care market and he noticed that the issue of hair loss was a constant matter raised in seminars and with hairdressers whom he mentored.

“No one seemed to know the remedy to hair loss and people kept giving each other wrong information regarding it. It was clear something needed to be done about it,” he says.

In trying to seek answers, Mr Musyoka enrolled for an online degree course in hair dressing in Sydney in 2009 and successfully graduated in 2010 as he had already completed a diploma on the same earlier, becoming the first IAT (International Association of Trichologists)-certified trichologist in East and Central Africa.

A trichologist helps people who have problems with their hair or scalp.

His studies mainly focused on the reasons for hair loss, remedy, care and dressing and involved six months of clinical training in Sydney under the supervision of an IAT-approved trichologist.

The numerous research he conducted in hair loss before and after his studies got him invited to various hair forums to share his findings on topics regarding balding and hair care.

As a trichologist he was in a position to diagnose and recommend treatment on hair loss and scalp treatment, but hair transplant remained an untapped opportunity in Kenya. He decided to fill that gap.

He approached his brother-in-law, a surgeon, to provide the services at the clinic and though initially reluctant he agreed to get further training on hair transplanting in India. Mr Musyoka was thus able to open a holistic hair diagnostic and treatment clinic in Nairobi last year.

“Hair Hub Clinic ensured that I had a physical place where people could come for extensive consultation and treatment,” he says.

Although the clinic opened its doors in April last year it was not until November when the first transplant took place to deal with permanent hair loss.

Mr Musyoka points to traction that happens during braiding, alopecia and balding in men as the most common causes of hair loss.

“The surgeon harvests hair from the client’s head and transplants it to bald areas. It takes six months for the hair to grow,” he says.

Among other procedures conducted at Hair Hub is laser therapy to enhance hair growth, scalp biopsy, hair and scalp analysis and nutritional recommendation for hair and scalp health.

The trichologist uses a trichoscope to diagnose hair and scalp problems. After analysis he recommends the best method of treatment.

Mr Musyoka has worked with Directorate of Industrial Training to put together a hair dressing certificate curriculum and offers consultation at Sh2,000 while the cost for hair transplants ranges from Sh150,000 to Sh500,000.

Since the hair transplants begun late last year, Hair Hub has conducted more than 50 procedures and recorded a 98 per cent success rate.

“We try to engage best practices to ensure success, for instance, when we conduct scalp biopsy we take the samples and results to a pathologist for further analysis and crosschecking,” he says.

Besides receiving clients from the region, Mr Musyoka says the clinic has treated patients from as far as Canada, New Zealand and Angola.