Nhenna Designs penetrates the beauty realm
Oleosi Kgosi | Sunday June 5, 2022 06:00
The beauty parlour specialises in a range of services inclusive of manicures, body arts and have developed further to the production of a range of scented candles, body scrubs, bath salts, hair growth serums, body butters, perfumes and massage. “The products are all hand made by us in the spa using 100% organic products,” Gleeson highlighted. Gleeson is a fully certified beauty therapist and makeup artist. She is famously known for her extravaganza on the ramp as a plus size model and her striking rainbow hairstyles. She penetrated the beauty market as a henna artist and later expanded into other aspects of beauty. “I have been in the beauty industry for almost 10 years now and in terms of development, I have managed to open my own beauty parlour in Molepolole,” she stated. The beauty parlour plays a great role in youth empowerment as it has appointed two male therapists.
According to Gleeson who strives to always stand out, she engaged male therapists because usually in spas people hire women so when she advertised the post, most applications were from male therapists so she thought, “why not be different and have guys for therapists.” Gleeson deems beauty as a combination of qualities. According to her, it can go from aesthetic senses to character or a person’s features, either physical or non-physical. She added that the most beautiful thing a human being can have is confidence.
Down her traceable background, she worked with Nora Cosmetics, several pop up stalls around Gaborone, Tebogo Mekgwe also known as Pinky girl from South Africa and currently working with Nandi Beauty Creations on skin care products.
Her aspiration as a beauty therapist is to serve and pamper her clients in the most indulgent way as possible to receive positivity and to create a healing environment. Throwing her two cents on Botswana’s beauty scenery, she stated that the scene is extensively growing as more and more beauticians are emerging with great exceptional work; there are people producing their own products for sale and creating employment for other people.
She added that there are beauticians going abroad and working with major artists, locally as well. However, she said most Batswana are very sceptical of local brands especially if they are not organically made. In this case they may rely on other clients reviews of product or resort to not buying the product at all. Moreover, she suggested that Batswana should try out locally made products more so as to create a platform for beauticians to understand the distinguished skin types and environment hence aiding development.
In terms of her support structure, she said her family plays a major role appreciating her father citing him as her biggest supporter and investor. She said her mother drives her with motivational talks and her grandmother for the extensive push. “Client wise you have to work hard as a business person to build loyal clientele especially if you run a business where the product you are selling is new to them and they are not used to it. You have to prove to them that this product is worth paying for,” she said.