Recently, the Chief Executive Officer of the institute, Mrs. Regina Adenike Adedoyin, popularly known as Doyin, played host to AlternativeHealth & Lifestyles in her office located at Ogba, Lagos. In the ensuring interview, the energetic beauty therapist, who is an icon of beauty herself, dives deep into the Nigerian beauty industry and addresses some of the issues confronting it. Below are excerpts from the interview.
To what extent does beauty affect health?
Beauty and health are one. Beauty therapy is the act of beautifying a person physically and psychologically. If you can understand the place of psychology in the well being of a person, then you should know the role beauty plays in the health of individuals, especially women. Beauty takes care of a woman’s confidence, it takes care of a woman’s internal well being. Moreover, it goes further than that. There is a direct effect of beauty therapy on health. For instance, the muscular system is greatly affected by massage therapy, it relieves pains. Massage therapy can be carried out with the aid of hands or machines. It has a direct effect on pain relief and the nervous system, which is responsible for the effectiveness of the brain. So, massage therapy not only affects blood circulation, it affects the way the brain functions as well.
There are several other beauty therapies that affect health. We have acne control therapy, which takes care of acne (what the lay man calls “pimples”) through the stimulation of the surface of the skin. This also affects age renewal because oxygen is easily passed though the vascular system. As you know, the skin breathes just like humans. We stimulate all the systems to regulate oxygen and energy, which has a direct bearing on how food is generated. Metabolism is enhanced, energy is used up and the digestive system is stimulated. This reduces the contractile symptom that is common amongst pregnant women. There’s also waist pains and back pains. There are also cases of tight and painful menstruations during periods. But beauty therapy helps to correct all these abnormalities.
Does surgery have any positive (or negative) effects on health?
There’s nothing that comes in contact with the body that does not have either a positive or a negative effect, especially with respect to some of the activities we undertake in the quest to enhance our beauty. If you analyze them critically, you find out they have some degree of health implications – either at the long run or on the short run. The food we eat, our lifestyles and even our religious activities (laughs jokingly) have effects on our health. You go to night vigils, you don’t sleep. You fast, you don’t eat. Now, back to your question, I cannot give a categorical answer because I am not a surgeon. I am an advocate of natural beauty, an advocate of graceful aging, of naturalness. I promote what God intends us to be. The Bible states that when God created man, he saw that man was good. Everything God created was good so, fundamentally, the beauty is already there; we are just trying to enhance it. Our job is to manage it, to care for it. There are roots and herbs to enhance the goodness that God has made of us.
Really, it’s psychological. Some may decide to look one way; others may decide otherwise. However, having said that, there’s always something to contend with when you decide to change the way you look. For instance, you enlarge your boobs; of course, it’s not going to feel the same way. When you stretch your skin, it does not feel the same. The choice is yours.
Some say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. How do you then define beauty? Who is a beautiful person and who is not?
It is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as people say. At times, a beautiful woman does not know she is beautiful until somebody else pays her compliments. I think it’s about what you appreciate. It’s psychological.
That means everybody is beautiful! Why then do we need beauticians?
I already told you: everything God created is good. What beauticians do is to enhance that goodness. Beauty is not only outward, it also involves an inward part of you. It’s about your carriage. A person may look extremely great and glowing outwardly but her comportment, her character, her etiquette and her carriage may end up belittling whatever score the outward appearance has recorded.
What beauticians do is to enhance what is already there. We cull it out and make it more appealing. Apart from culling it out, we also manage the skin. We enable part of the system that, for one reason or the other, has ceased to function perfectly or has slowed down. The acts of living affect the body and, consequently, affect the way the body looks. The role of the beautician or beauty therapist is to enhance the appearance of the skin.
How would you rate the Nigerian beauty therapy industry vis-Ã -vis global standards?
The Nigerian industry is still behind global standards but all the same, we are growing. That’s one of the challenges Lanniki Beauty Limited is set to off-set because the business concept of the outfit is to improve, promote and provide beauty products and services. And when we say quality, we mean quality at the global level.
We are trying to bring the local industry to global standards, to the awareness of up-to-date equipment and their applications. We are building and growing individuals who can complete globally because, honesty, the local industry is not there yet. The pace at which we get there, will be determined by the level of awareness on ground. If we are able to understand the extent of this backwardness in the local industry, we would be able to know how to put strategies together to arrive.
What are the potentials in industry?
The potentials are great. But the beauty sector has perception problems. Through the industry is gradually picking up, the problem of perception is still there.
There used to be this impression that the industry is for those that are not learned, those with low I.Q. or that cannot make it academically. In Nigeria, that perception is still there. It is also evident in other Africa countries like Ghana, Togo and Cote d’Voire. I’ve been to these countries and I saw it was the same thing, the same problem of perception.
But, this should not be so. In the advanced countries, beauty therapy is dominated by intellectuals. There are bodies and organizations, over there, which are aimed at improving the industry. An example is the City Guilds of London which we represent here in Nigeria. These bodies have done tremendously well in improving the perception of people with regards to the industry.
And that’s what we are doing here. Lannik Beauty Institute is a training centre for City & Guilds. We are linking and connecting potentials in Nigeria with oversea standards. That sort of stiffened the entry level into the Institute, thereby reducing the number of people going in. But we are not relenting because we know that the more candidates we produce under this umbrella, the more experts that will go into the industry, thereby reshaping the perception. Eventually, the quacks will be eradicated. For now, they are accessible because they are easy set up within a short time.
The government, too, has a key role to play. We have a diversity of vocations in Nigeria, which the educational sector could bring into its fold instead of being streamlined with their courses. Practitioners of these vocations are making fantastic living out of them; yet these are vocations that are not included in the curriculum, that are not standardized” as it were.
An example of these is the fashion and designing industry, where operators out there are doing quite well, so well that even graduates are now going into the industry. The health and beauty sector, to which I belong, is making waves; yet it has not been well integrated into the curriiculum of our tertiary institutions. It’s not fair. The federal government should look into the direction of widening the school curriculum with a view to accommodating these vocations. I am not limiting it to beauty and health, it goes for all those unrecognized vocations that are making waves in the economy. They should be incorporated at either the diploma level or the degree level - thereby bringing them to intentional standards.
At Lannik, students take international examinations, they do not need to be interviewed before they are employed.
A better recognition of other sectors can also make them achieve the same niche. Herbal Medicine practice is a good example of these other sectors. Practitioners are getting a lot of patronage and yet they have not been fully integrated into the mainstream educational sector. How can we achieve global standards if we do not bring them into the enclave of the educational system?
What is the driving force behind Lannik Beauty Institute?
The driving force is the revelation that we got from God. Lannik started with a revelation to go and grow potentials. Our unique selling point is quality. Our quality cuts across every product and service of Lannik Beauty institute.
You are in Lagos. How can somebody in, say, Abuja or Port Harcourt, have access to you?
You have access to our website (www.lannikbeauty.com). We are also in the media, anybody can get across to us. People who have patronized us, help in advertising us to the general public due to the quality they get from here.
We have provisions for those who are unable to come here or are unable to stay and study for very long but want our services. We have what we call Internet Training. We also have off-campus training: this is mainly for those who want to improve on their skills, it’s a sort of refresher course.
For the Internet Training, we have practical theories and illustrations via the internet, which a person can access as soon as the person registers and meets the requirements. We give the person our password and agree on the timing, training schedule and assessment procedures.
International registration and examinations can also be done through the internet. The oral based exams can be written via the Net.
We have two main programmes and one comprehensive programme. The two programmes are Hair Dressing Cosmetology and Beauty Therapy. The comprehensive aspect of the beauty industry includes Hair Dressing, Beauty Therapy and related courses – Salon Management, Beauty Engineering, Chemical Analysis and Product Formation amongst others. In all of these programmes, one can acquire a Certificate or a Diploma. A certificate holder is an assistant unlike her diploma counterpart who is a practicing person, proficient in the profession. Besides these, we have Advanced Diploma in which the holder can take vital decisions that affect the management of the Spa as well as decisions that affect services themselves.
For instance, if a lady who comes for facial therapy, a decision needs to be taken on the kind of therapy and product line that would adequately soothe that client. It is an Advanced Diploma holder that can take such decisions. A Diploma holder stops at technically taking skin analysis and delivering the services but the Advanced Diploma holder is able to look into other facts and do an in-depth analysis on courses – psychological, environmental or health causes – of those issues that are being looked at in order to able to create what we call a Therapy plan. Once this plan has been created, a Diploma holder can go ahead to deliver the services.
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