Friday, October 11, 2024
No menu items!

Haired Up! Ngozi Opara and the Heat Free Hair Movement for the African Woman.

It’s another exciting #EntrepreneursTuesday!

From the shores of Nigeria, across the teeming, rising continent of Africa, and far beyond our borders, the natural hair movement is exactly that; a movement that is redefining the concept of beauty, as it relates to a woman and a very sensitive part of womanhood: the all important hair.

When you realize that 5 in every 10 women are sporting their natural locks, you also realize that this is a huge industry. And if you haven’t realized that, stand in line. Ngozi Opara has gone ahead of you.

Ngozi Opara
source: MadameNoire

Black and beautiful, Ngozi Opara  is the founder of Heat Free Hair which manufactures hair extensions targeted at African women with natural hair. In 2012 Ngozi set out to fill a void in the natural hair industry by creating the Heat Free Hair Movement, inspired by the thousands of women that use sew-in weaves as their protective style of choice, but were limited to styles that require them to heat straighten their hair for the purpose of blending with their style.

Heat Free Hair manufactures high-quality wefted hair extensions, closures, wigs, and clip-in extensions designed to blend effortlessly with the different curl patterns and textures of a woman’s natural hair.

Ngozi’s entrepreneurial dreams started humbly- with a small hair studio in Washington DC where she tended to clients after a hard day’s work at her job as a financial analyst. She put her money where her dreams lay and grew her business with the monies she earned at her day job.

Not content with just fixing hair, Ngozi moving to Qingdao, China where she studied to become a Hair Manufacturing Technician, learning the ropes of her trade from the inside-out. Presently, Heat Free Hair manufactures kinky, curly and coiled textured hair for the different types of natural hair in their factory in Qingdao, China, ships to the United States for packaging, and then onward for sales and distribution.

Ngozi Opara
source: EventBrite

And yes, their leading markets in Africa are Nigeria [unsurprising] and South Africa.

In addition to this, Ngozi Opara started the Heat Free Hair Movement, which educates and enlightens naturalistas through seminars, instructional videos and events.

Her major challenge, she admitted in an interview with HowWeMadeItInAfrica was fear… the fear of succeeding in a male dominated business and the fear of other people’s words and opinions preventing her  from following through on ideas and taking risks with her business.

Ngozi Opara
Source: RollingOut

However, time and experience have taught her that people are always going to have an opinion, so it is best to set one’s heart steadfastly on one’s goal and pursue it, because it can be done despite what the naysayers say.

Moral of the Story: 1. Open your eyes to opportunities and leverage on them. 2. There will always be naysayers- flee! 3. Acquiring extra expertise in your particular industry is always a good idea. 4. Put your money where your money where your mouth is!

Jennifer Nkem-Eneanya
Jennifer Nkem-Eneanyahttp://jennyuncensored.wordpress.com
5 Things You Didn't Know About Jennifer in 2015: 1. Her newest collection of short stories, 'The Curious Case of the Small Pikin & Other Stories' is available on okadabooks.com 2. She ported from Blogger to WordPress and shares her uncensored thoughts on jennyuncensored.wordpress.com 3. She is an aspiring Filmmaker & Talk-show Host[ess] 4. She's a mother of two, wife of one and daughter of God. 5. She plans to travel around the world in less than 80 days... Now you Know! Find me on Twitter: @jennynkem

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Stay Connected

10,361FansLike
1,696FollowersFollow
1,494FollowersFollow

Latest Articles