BEAUTY ROUTINE OF THE STARS: KIKA OSUNDE

At any mention of good hair, the names that immediately come to mind are, Kika Osunde aka Kika Good Hair and Chioma Ikokwu aka Chioma Good Hair. This is so because the beautiful and stylish ladies are the co-founders and co-CEOs of Good Hair Limited, the premium hair and beauty brand. Theirs is an ideal story of beauty and brains, guts and eventually glory. Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu growing Good Hair Limited from its humble beginnings in the UK to the doyen of all discerning women that it is today is no mean feat and they deserve all the celebrity success has accorded them.

Of course, a lot has been written about Good Hair Limited and its founders Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu though today the focus is on the tall, light-skinned and oh so beautiful Kika Osunde.

So many women admire (some even envy!) Kika Osunde’s style, fashion and beauty. So I decided to catch up with her so she can share a sneak preview of her world with us. And of course the surprisingly humble Kika Osunde graciously accepted to field some questions honestly. No, I did not ask her about the boring financial details of Good Hair Limited. It was all about beauty baby. We spoke about her impeccable sense of style and her admirable fashion choices. Also, I could not help swooning over Kika Osunde’s wonderful hair, skin and makeup.

Being the perpetually curious person that I am, I had to ask her a few questions about her beauty routine. Here are the highlights;

I just love how fabulous your hair is. Tell me how you take care of your hair, Kika?

K: Hair wise, I have been team natural for quite a long while now even though I did some relaxing not so long ago. I usually avoid shampooing my hair unless I absolutely have to do it, chiefly because of the sulphate in shampoos. I mostly deep condition, then I do protective hairstyles and put on my wig.

How about your glowing skin, what is the famous Kika Good Hair’s special skin routine?

K: Well, there is nothing super special about what I do with my skin. I like natural products and I also do a lot of research, so I know that Vitamin C and lemons are good to make my skin brighter. When I am in Nigeria, I usually tend to get darker because of the sun so I prefer anything that will protect me and accord me an even skin tone. When I am in London, I make my own scrubs with lemon and brown sugar which I use in ex-foliating my skin all over, but I have a friend in Lagos who makes it for me during my stays in Nigeria. My body lotions mostly consist of Vitamin C creams from body shop. I am also a big fan of Shea butter but I don’t use it during the day since it makes me dark. And yeah, I just purchased a skin care line called Murad.

What is the scoop on your preferred makeup and application techniques?

K: I totally love Nars products because they are light, airy and skin friendly. I hate it when my skin is all covered up and giving me that cakey feeling. I like to see all my imperfections and blemishes so that my face will still look like me (smiles). I add on a new makeup product every year, which is not good for the skin by the way, so I am trying to let the skin breathe more nowadays.

As for application techniques, no one has ever taught me makeup so it’s really just practice.

I know I’ve already asked about your hair, but please as a parting shot share just one hair tip for extensions!

K: Okay, let me see… yes, when you’re buying a bundle of hair, the hair should never look identical. If they do, just know that they've been processed and mass produced. Also, wefting of synthetic hair is seamless and perfect but that of human hair is folded over so you can see the tips of the top end. 

BEAUTY REGIMEN: CHIOMA IKOKWU’S ROUTINE

Anyone who has an eye on the beauty industry must have heard about Chioma Ikokwu, the beautiful and sharp witted co-founder of Good Hair Limited. Chioma Good Hair as she is fondly referred to by her customers and fans has been hugely successful in her venture with friend and business partner, Kika Osunde. Together they have grown their hair and beauty company from the obscurity of their dorm room to the international brand of repute that it is today.

Much has been written about the lovely good hair ladies, celebrating and extolling their unprecedented success in business, their relevance in society and the dynamic duo’s svelte sense of fashion and style.

Today I caught up with the flawless and ever smiling Chioma Ikokwu to take a peek into her world. Chioma Good Hair was gracious enough to grant us courteous audience and of course the questions I rattled off were met with graceful and sincere answers. I could not help but admire her great (not just good) hair, her glowing skin and wonderful makeup.

Being the perpetually curious person that I am, I could not help but ask her a few questions about her beauty regime. Here are the excerpts;

Q: I cannot help noticing how fabulous your hair is. How do you take care of it?

C: (chuckles daintily) Oh thank you so much for the compliment. Right now, I have decided to go natural with my hair even though it is not how I usually keep it. Also, I am not so good at the natural hair thing but I make sure to wash and deep condition my hair every two week.

Also, I get a deep scalp treatment every other month. For my natural hair grooming, I like to use Keracare products. Keracare are kind of like my favourite when it comes to maintaining my natural hair but I sometimes also use Syntonics. So yeah, Keracare and Syntonics it is.

Q: How about you skin, what is the famous Chioma Good Hair’s super-secret skin routine?

C: Hahahahahaha, there is actually no secret. Skin wise, black soap is what I use and it is really good especially for those who have oily skin. Vitamin C serum is also a very good product to have because it repairs, moisturizes and protects your skin. I personally use Obagi Vitamin C serum and any natural black soap.

Q: Tell me about your makeup preferences and techniques.

C: Makeup wise, I prefer Nars products and the Nars concealer is absolutely amazing. I favour the Armani foundation. Even though it is not so popular, it is actually very good and brings a very light finish that is not too thick on the skin. The Inglot AMC Eyeliner Gel is probably the best eyeliner ever created. It is really dark, water resistant, and stays on once applied. You literally cannot wipe it off unless you use an oil based remover.

Q: Do you workout? Because you actually look amazing!

C: (Big laugh) You wouldn't believe it, but I really don’t. To be honest, I’m not very healthy. I do not workout but I do try to drink as much water as I can. I however eat healthy most times, and then I don’t eat healthy sometimes (chuckles again). So I will eat a salad but then I would also have deserts because I unabashedly love ice-cream, Yoghurt, cake, chocolate and all that!

A TOUR OF THE GOOD HAIR SPACE MALL

A TOUR OF THE GOOD HAIR SPACE MALL

On the 31^st of December, 2017 Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde, co-owners of Good Hair Limited opened their new Good Hair Space Mall to the Lagos public. Located at #1 Olubunmi Owa street (same turning as Ebeano Supermarket, opposite CBC Towers), Lekki phase 1, the expansion adds a terrace restaurant, state of the art male salon to its bouquet of shops.

The co-owners, Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu say that the vision was to bring premium beauty solutions and luxurious relaxation under one roof in a sort of one-stop-shop. Chioma Ikokwu says the idea is to “offer clients 5-star luxury treatments. Let’s take a tour of the facility, shall we?

Premium Good Hair Salon

According to the owners, Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu, services available at the Premium Good Hair Space include hair extensions & wig sales, weaves, haircuts, hair coloring, natural hair grooming and much more. The salon is a masterclass in elegance, comfort and luxury from the furnishings to the state-of-the-art equipment available to serve customers.

Nail Bar

The nail bar is where you can obtain services on all things nail. Just like the other shops in the Good Hair Space, the furnishing and ambiance of the nail bar is second to none and the pedigree of the staff is top notch. This is a perfect destination to go to when you’re looking for some pampering along with great grooming work on your nails.

Make Up Studio by DDB Studios

For this one, Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde got Good Hair to partner with the Toronto makeup guru, DDB studios to provide cutting edgemakeup services and more right in the courteous and luxurious environment of the Good Hair Space.

Lash Spa by Beauty Bottega

Beauty Bottega are beauty care specialists offering tailored services including lash grooming, semi-permanent eyelash extensions and brow grooming. The ladies at Good Hair Limited thought it great to enter into a strategic partnership with the eye and lash impresarios which brings their lash spa to the Good Hair Space. You can now relax Good Hair Dolls, your brow and lash care is in purrfect hands!

Next by Good Hair

Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde are definitely not leaving out the male folk. That’s why the Good Hair Space also features the male hair grooming shop ‘Next’ where gentlemen can stop by for all their hair grooming needs. It is furnished to give that man cave vibe and exquisite feel of luxurious comfort.

Brass and Copper (Diner/Lounge/Shisha Bar) 

Brass and Copper is a partnership between Good Hair Limited and Casa Lydia and Cocoon. It is a beautiful place with great access to natural lighting. Also the attention to detail by Kika and Chioma Good Hair who made sure the name, Brass and Copper is evident in all the features, knick knacks and furniture. The aesthetics of the place is very commendable. Also worthy of note is the alternative artworks and soft background music which ranges from funky house to soft RnB.

Servings include Chicken Kebab, Hot Chops, Roast potatoes, Steamed rice

This is a full service restaurant located in the Good Hair Space that features a bar and lounge, breakfast, brunch and shisha. It is great for groups and also PoS complaint. The average spend for 2 persons will be approximately N16, 000.

So there you have it, you one-stop-shop for good hair and all things beauty and relaxation. Stop by for a taste of that luxurious feel you can only get at the Good Hair Space.

About Good Hair Limited

Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu established Good Hair Limited in England in 2009. In 2014, Good Hair Limited opened its first retail store in Nigeria. The hair brand also has a thriving online boutique.

Good Hair Limited specializes in pre-customized illusion wigs and hair extensions including raw virgin hair, wigs and silk/lace top closures.

The business has carved an international niche for itself and is regarded as the provider of premium hair and beauty services in Nigeria.

Good Hair Limited is on Facebook and Instagram as @goodhairltd or visit www.goodhairltd.com

FIVE LESSONS FROM CHIOMA IKOKWU’S AND KIKA OSUNDE’S SUCCESS STORY

If you’ve not been in a hole the past couple of years, then you must have heard about the dynamic duo, Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu. Popularly known as Chioma Good Hair and Kika Good Hair, the beautiful ladies are co-founders and co-CEOs of the wildly successful hair, beauty and lifestyle company, Good Hair Limited.

They started Good Hair Limited in England while undergraduates at the University of Birmingham. From the humble beginnings of the Good Hair brand, Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde have grown their business into a successful international brand. Testament to this is the vast patronage of their hair products among celebrities including Rihanna, Kelly Rowland, Genevieve Nnaji and others.

We took some time to reflect on their journey, and came up with some lessons on how Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu have been able to grow such a massive brand from an operation which started in their dorm rooms. Let’s share our findings;

1.       Make a business out of your passion

Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde had always loved amazingly good hair. They used to buy from other vendors and wear them so beautifully that friends and family would ask where they sourced their hair from. This trend continued till they did some research, found suppliers online who were cheaper, and decided to go into business for themselves.

The truth is that the entrepreneurship journey has its up and downs, it is never all rosy especially during the early years. Being passionate about what you do is one sure way to keep faith and keep pushing even when the going gets tough.

This has been true for Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde because just like any new business, they faced several challenges but their genuine love for and interest in good hair and helping women around the world look beautiful kept them going.

2.       Study the market

Chioma and Kika say that the first thing they did post their decision to go into the hair business was to study the market.

You need to know whether the market is suitable for whatever it is that you’re bringing to the table because an idea might be more appealing in some geographical areas and not so much in other areas. Asides from this, you also need to know your ideal customer – will your product or service be appealing to younger or older people?

This can never be overemphasized because wonderful sounding ideas have occurred to people and they rush to implement only to find out that people are not interested in what they are offering.

3.       Never compromise quality

According to Chioma Ikokwu, one of the things that made her look to the internet to source other suppliers (in the days they were yet to start their business) was the fluctuating quality of weaves and extensions she bought from her then suppliers.

Because of this, they decided never to compromise on quality in their own venture with Good Hair Limited. This single decision has paid off handsomely as one of the factors that keep their customers always coming back is Good Hair’s rock solid guarantee of quality.

The business partners, Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde go as far as travelling across the world to meet their respective hair donors and manufacturers just to ensurethat standards are upheld.

4.       Employ the best staff and continuously train them

When Chioma and Kika started out it was just the two of them, but as business grew they had to employ staff to help in various aspects of their operations. They quickly found out that mediocre staff sometimes sabotaged business relationships that had required a great effort to set up.

This time coming from Kika Osunde, she says that one of the greatest challenges Good Hair faced as a business was sourcing the right staff and training them to acquire the necessary skills for the job. Also, especially in Nigeria where staff retention rate is low, you will have to keep employing and training, to keep up with new developments in the industry and to replace other staff that may leave the organization.

5.       Create work-life balance

In the beginning when it was just Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu, Kika Osunde was in charge of maintaining their Facebook page, which was the main channel for advertising and marketing their business. Things got so hectic and she worked overtime so much that her health suffered till she realized that every business must have opening and closing hours.

The lesson here is that if you overwork and neglect your health, soon, you won’t be strong enough to continue growing your business. So, it is extremely necessary to maintain a healthy work-life balance even as you give your ultimate effort to tasks.

Hopefully as you apply these lessons to your own entrepreneurship journey, you’ll experience success similar to that which Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde enjoy with Good Hair Limited.

Good Hair Limited is on Facebook and Instagram as @goodhairltd or visit www.goodhairltd.com

BEAUTY, BRAINS AND GOOD HAIR

WHY CHIOMA IKOKWU AND KIKA OSUNDE ARE THE IT GIRLS!

One thing is certain – Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde are definitely on top of their game. The bosom friends are both co-founders and co-CEOs of the popular luxury hair brand, Good Hair Limited. Despite the odds of doing business in recent times, the Good Hair girls have managed to grow and scale the business to this point where they are the cynosure of all eyes.

Whenever great hair and beauty solutions are mentioned, the first names that come to mind are Kika

Good Hair and Chioma Good Hair, as they are popularly known in reference to their company Good Hair Limited. But it had not always been like that. Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu have not always been in the spotlight. A number of traits, practices and behaviors are responsible for their seemingly meteoric rise. Let’s shine a light on some of them;

Self-awareness
Both Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde have always been careful with their looks from as far back as they can remember. Chioma says she had always loved to look beautiful, experimenting with beauty products right from when she was old enough to know what beauty was. Her partner Kika Osunde also says so of herself. The friends and business partners have always known themselves to be very interested in beauty and they cultivated their passion unapologetically.
Knowing and staying true to themselves indeed paid off handsomely as it is the seed that germinated
into their beautiful reality today.
Insight Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu while students in university, used to get a lot of compliments from friends and family about their hair. Even though they had not yet started their business at the time, they were deluged by enquiries as to where they got their hair extensions and weaves from. Chioma and Kika were always glad to purchase hair on behalf of friends and family till it finally occurred to them that they could make a business out of it.

Market survey
Once Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde made the decision to go into the hair business, the first thing
they did was take a good look at the whole hair industry – suppliers, products, distribution, etc. It was at this point they discovered through Internet research that they could actually procure great hair (better quality than they were getting from their suppliers at the time) and at cheaper rates too.
Since business is basically about sourcing a product or service at low price and selling at a higher price which people are willing to pay for, Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde knew they had a workable idea on their hands.

Collaboration
Since Kika Osunde was very interested in wigs and lace frontals/closures while Chioma Ikokwu’s
predilection and expertise was more to actual hair extensions, it made perfect sense for them to team
up and complement their knowledge and skills.
According to Chioma Ikokwu, both ladies came up with 600 pounds each for the necessary initial capital.
This made perfect sense given the fact that they were both still students at the time with limited access to funds. Pooling together their skills and resources is one of the factors that took them a step closer to the realization of their dream.

Beauty & Brains, rare picture of Kika and Chioma of Good hair

Started small
Even though a lot of people may not know this, Good Hair Limited was started by Chioma Ikokwu andKika Osunde in their hostel. Yes that’s right, their dorm room in the University of Birmingham! And their first office was located inside their kitchen in London.
The fact is that most glitzy success stories started out in pretty unglamorous circumstances. Waiting for perfect conditions never works out and Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu seemed to be aware of this.

Education
Despite the come up of their promising business venture, Chioma Good Hair and Kika Good Hair never neglected their studies. Rather, they found a way to effectively combine both.
Kika Osunde bagged a degree in Business and Marketing from the University of Birmingham while
Chioma Ikokwu earned herself a BL in Law from the same university. Chioma went ahead to get awarded an LL.M in International and Environmental Law, and International Commercial Arbitration from the University of London. Chioma Good Hair went even a step further to get called to the Nigerian Bar after completing a year of legal studies at the Nigerian Law School.
No doubt their skills in business, marketing, negotiation and contracts have been gained and sharpened by the great education which they've enjoyed. Education as a means of empowerment can never be overemphasized.

Ambition
The first boutique salon Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu opened for Good Hair Limited is located in London, and has been very successful. The business partners however did not stop there, but went
ahead to open up a branch in Lagos along with an online store. According to Chioma Ikokwu, they have plans to open stores in New York, Paris and a second shop in the UK.
Without ambition, they probably would have been content with the first shop they opened in London
and who knows, we probably would never have known them.

Network
It is said that you’re only worth as much as your network, and girl, have Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde built and nurtured theirs. The hair entrepreneurs intentionally court polite society and decision makers in the beauty industry.
This single factor has gone a really long way to endearing them and increasing their relevance.

Quality – or in other words, Good hair!
When asked what the differentiator between Good Hair Limited and other hair businesses is, Chioma
Ikokwu wastes no time in saying, “it’s the quality.” The truth is that there is no substitute to good quality – premium quality always stands out any product or service.

Chioma Ikokwu and Kika Osunde go the extra length by travelling across the world to physically visit their hair donors and manufacturers to ensure the quality of their hair products never fall below par.

This list might not be exhaustive but it gives a snapshot into the inner workings that have contributed to adorning Kika Osunde and Chioma Ikokwu with celebrity status today. You can follow them on
Instagram: @kikagoodhair @chiomagoodhair @goodhairltd or visit the online store at
www.goodhairltd.com