•Beauty Specialist, TOYIN COLLINS Reveals
Oluwatoyin Collins is a pretty lady who is a good Advert for what she does for a living. She is a Skin care specialist. She is one of the foremost practitioners of the Beauty industry in Nigeria. As a matter of fact, this simple, young looking lady is credited as the first beauty expert to set up a beauty Spa in Lagos, but the second in Nigeria. The first Spa was set up in Abuja some 25 years ago or thereabout. But Toyin Collins was the first to begin the Spa business in Lagos. And she has remained a force to reckon with in the industry. Today, Toyin is the President of the Practitioners of Spa and Beauty Association of Nigeria (POSBAN).
This accomplished entrepreneur was one of the outstanding women honoured at the recently held City People Female Achievers Award in Lagos. She was recognised for her remarkable contributions to the beauty and spa industry. City People Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (0803720929) had a chat with this delectable lady shortly after she picked up her award and she shared with us her journey in the industry and how she has evolved since she began 25 years ago. Below are excerpts of the interview.
We understand you have been in the beauty sector for a long while now. Tell us a bit about that.
Well, I’ve been in the beauty sector for a while. Mr. Seye knows. When I first came to Nigeria, he was one of the people that received me. It wasn’t anything like this. We were like the foundation. We are the ones that started this. And to the glory of God, it’s all over Nigeria now.
About how many years ago are we talking about?
About 24-25 years ago. At that time, I was living in the U.S. so of course I came back. I wanted to impact the society about that. And ever since, we have been making impact. Specifically I’m into spa. Today, I’m the president of the Beauty Association of Nigeria. We have been working so hard with the government because a lot of things were not in place. Safety is a mess. So, I have personally been working a lot with state government agencies and I’m also a consultant to them. So, we have been working on adjusting some laws and making sure safety is in place in the industry.
Particularly within the spa sector?
Within the beauty industry as a whole.
Can you take us back to 25 years ago? What inspired you back then to go into the beauty business? What did you find fascinating about that sector?
Well, I’ve always been somebody who’s been into that. Even as a young lady, I loved looking good. I was living in the U.K. first. I used to work in a lot of beauty shops where they sell cosmetics and skincare products. So, that’s where the idea first came and the passion. So, when I crossed over to the States, of course I went to school to study that line of profession. I did my postgraduate and everything.
So, when I came to Nigeria on a visit, I noticed that we were still really behind. A lot of things were not okay then, compared to what we have now today. Thank God for the Internet. It makes the world easier and smaller. At that time, it wasn’t like that. The world was far apart. I thought about bringing this to Nigeria. I remember I was the second person to put a spa in Nigeria. The first person is in Abuja. I’m the first person in Lagos but the second in Nigeria. So, this is how we started.
I will never forget a City People reporter, his name was Kayode Fayemi. He is late now. I have pleasant memories of him. In fact, every time I call that name, I feel goose bumps all over me. He was very passionate about his work. He was always inquisitive. He wanted to meet all the new people coming into the business. I will never forget the question he asked me. He said, Aunty, what is SPA?
I explained to him that it’s not an acronym like you think. It’s a word. It’s a beauty word. The Spa business was new then and not many knew what it was.
I also explained to him that it’s where you come for your wellness. You can do your massage. You can do your skincare. If you want to have good skin, it helps people that have breakouts, wrinkles, dry skin and all that and you want to work on it. I said, this is what we do. Of course, the massage was a new thing in Nigeria.
Although there are people doing the local type of massage, this one is different. I explained everything to him that way. I believe we really impacted the society then. Not too long, the thing started spreading. People started coming up with the spa and all that. Makeup started coming in also.
I remember a friend called Mary Charles. She was doing tattoo. It all just came out at that time. Over time, today, I am proud of where Nigeria is in the beauty industry.
It’s been 25 years down the line. It’s a really long time. A lot of things have changed. What are some of those things that still raise concerns for you, looking at the way it is practiced here and what is obtainable over there?
I see a lot of concerns. I see a lot of things not in place. This is why we’re working with the government. We’re opening their eyes to a lot of things. They’re interested. They want things to get better. Like I said, in the safety area, there’s still a lot of things going wrong. In the certification area, a lot of people are not certified. A lot of people are not training in the right way that they’re supposed to.
One thing I realized about Nigeria, when you’re not a doctor, you’re not those big names, they want to look down on it. Same way, a lot of these young people that were getting into it, they were taking it lightly. They’re not doing it the proper way they’re supposed to. Everybody wants to rush in and rush out. Oh, we can do two weeks. Go and start making the money. But there’s more to that. In this industry, it’s very easy to catch diseases. What do I mean? Because of the equipment, the tools and things that we use. It’s very important to let people know that there are dangers involved that we need to look into.
I was going to ask you if you could be more specific about some of these concerns that you’re so very worried about.
I am talking about some of the dangers that could come in when the job has been done by people that were either not properly trained or not even certificated at all. For example, I always like to make an example of Under bridge, Ikeja. There are a lot of quacks there. I don’t know where they learn from. One day I pretended like I wanted to do my nails there. In fact, I was sorry for what I saw in regards to safety. It’s not okay at all. So I think we need to have something called Beauty Council of Nigeria because every country has it. Like UK, they have a beauty council. And that’s the one that actually monitors the education in that area. So for example, if you say you’re a trainer, Beauty Council of Nigeria is supposed to question what you know, how did you learn, what makes you think you can train another person? We’re the one that will certify that person. So, we still need to get there. And we’re still working on that with a lot of people.
We’ve got agencies like Lagos State Safety Agency, HEFAMAA, that's the Health Facilities Monitoring and Accreditation Agency involved and it’s taking care of the parts of where people are doing all these injectables. All these people that are doing breast jobs, that are doing butt jobs, and all those things. So they are looking into that critically. And I’m happy with the work they’re doing in that area. And meanwhile, safety is looking into what is your certificate, what are the safety that is in place for you to be running this business? So those are all the things. And it’s still very, very porous. Because there’s a lot of work, but very minimum number of people to handle it.
There’s very few workers that can take care of the issues in that industry.
Are you impressed so far with the government’s enthusiasm, in those areas of concern?
Yes, I am actually. They love the money that they get from me, as in the taxes. They find a way to just always charge, have something. But apart from that, yes, they are doing good. These two agencies that I mentioned, HEFAMAA and Lagos State Safety Commission, they’re really doing good. Not too long ago, about a month ago, Lagos State Safety Commission had this stakeholders meeting that they invited a lot of stakeholders in the beauty industry just to train them on safety, and what is expected of each spa. This means that when they come out after people, when they start doing all their routine checks and all that, if they find you wanting, you will face the consequences. So they did that and HEFAMAA also did, I think something on World Safety Day too that was very good. About three or four weeks ago too.
You also mentioned that you’re president of one of the associations that’s a critical stakeholder in the sector. Tell us about that.
Well, the acronym is POSBAN, which means Practitioners of Spa and Beauty Association of Nigeria. Well, I’m also a founder. We’re very passionate about what is going on in the beauty industry in Nigeria. So we’re working with the government in trying to make sure people are certified, that people know what they’re doing. We’re the ones to ensure things are done the professional way they should be done. We have a lot of members under us now and we’re still asking more people to join. What we do is that occasionally we do trainings to try and open their eyes. A lot of them, they’re just doing this thing, but it’s like somebody closed their eyes and they didn’t know what they were doing. So we’re really helping them.
A lot of them are very happy. You know, we’re training them in different things and sometimes we come with different topics. What we want to do, maybe in two months or in three months, we want to do a specific area. And then we’ll do safety area also about six weeks or thereabouts also, Safety commission did a safety training specifically for our association. And it was fantastic. And they certified them, you know, combined with us. We give them certificates so they can post it on their wall for all the ones that attended. And that inspires a lot of people.
More people want to know more about it, they want to come and learn more. So that way if we can continue like that, you know, with the passion that the association has, because we believe in standardization, education, a lot of things to just let the industry be standard.
Let’s be like our counterparts overseas so that when anybody comes to us, we can stand firm that we know what we’re doing. And we’re doing that with our association.
When was the association set up?
Roughly about 7 years ago.
Are you fully based here in Nigeria now or you still get to shuttle between?
No, I don’t shuttle anymore. I’m here unless I go on holiday. I’m here now.
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