Awele Victoria Ofuasia, a Business Administration graduate of the Lagos State Polytechnic, earns money from three sources: makeup, soap-making, and event planning. The diversity of her income streams ensures that none of her businesses suffers the impact of low patronage, making each financially stable.
By Ishaya Ibrahim
Awele Victoria Ofuasia, a Business Administration graduate of the Lagos State Polytechnic, earns money from three sources: makeup, soap-making, and event planning. The diversity of her income streams ensures that none of her businesses suffers the impact of low patronage, making each financially stable.
Through her make-up brand, Vikkystouch, the young entrepreneur provides make-up services and offers training in tying of gele, a traditional head tie worn by women.
She also produces multipurpose soap, dishwasher and handwash through her Winnies_Onestop brand. She customises the products as souvenirs for interested clients.
Victoria’s versatility extends to event planning, helping clients scout venues, managing vendors, arranging logistics, handling communications, negotiating contracts, controlling budgets and others.
The inspiration
During her final year at school, Victoria became pregnant. That came with multiple financial strains on her. “During the pregnancy, it wasn’t an easy thing for me. Things were tough for me. The only thing in my head then was, let me have my child, go out and work, because nobody was giving me money”, she recalled.
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Upon graduation, with her baby girl already born, she got a job. In her words; “In life, if something happens to you, you will learn. The pregnancy opened my eyes to a lot of things.”
Learning makeup
Victoria started a sales job in a baby store, working Mondays to Saturdays and using Sundays to learn makeup. She would also watch YouTube videos to augment her learning.
For Victoria, the inspiration to learn makeup came from knowing that working as a sales manager was not a sustainable revenue source.
She said: “I was making money. But one day, I sat down and said to myself if this was what I wanted to do forever. I thought of it and said I need to get something doing, like, I need to have my own business. And I came up with makeup.”
Soap making idea
With a glut of makeup artists, Victoria decided to add soap-making to her business portfolio. She said: “Along the line, with the way things were, and everywhere there’s a makeup artist, I just felt like, okay, let me do something else. So, I ventured into soap making.”
Her soap-making brand deals in multipurpose and dishwashing. She explained; “We have the one for multipurpose that you can use for everything, and we have the one strictly for dishes alone. I have people that buy them in bulk. I have people that buy them for like souvenirs, you print on it.”
Becoming an event planner
Victoria later teamed up with an old friend to do event planning. She explained why she picked up event planning. “This economy that we have now is not easy. If I’m putting my hand in my makeup money, I won’t have something to work with. You can buy one bottle of foundation, you use it and it’s gone. And I’m talking about something like N20,000 Naira for one, and you have to have six to seven different colours. So, imagine if I now do the makeup of N20,000, come back home, buy food for myself, buy food for my child, imagine I can’t save up because of the expenses – pay for house rent, utility and other things. For events, there is no cost of materials like in the other businesses,” she said.
Sourcing capital
Victoria recalled saving part of her salary in buying low-grade makeup products which she used in launching out. She said: “I saved up from my salary to buy makeup kits. Those things that I bought then were not really, really good quality ones. So, I was just trying to manage that,” she said.
She later upgraded to Classic, a popular Nigerian makeup brand. “What I could afford at that time were Nigerian products, which is classic. If you know anybody that is into make-up, just tell them Classic. Classic is a very, very popular Nigerian brand,” she said. Victoria said businesses started coming, especially with referrals.
Challenges
Gluts in the makeup industry started affecting sales, with newcomers undercutting the price of the service. She said: “Backtrack to three to four years ago, I started using good products. I started using imported products. But just because I want to make money, I’ll charge moderate, and people are still even complaining. And they would rather go to a new make-up artist. Maybe somebody that is just coming up so they can do something affordable. You know somebody that is just coming up, they are trying to make a name. So, they will do something cheaper. So, business will go down and products are really expensive.”
Victoria recalled how she almost gave up on makeup due to low business, but something happened that renewed her interest in the craft. She said: “There’s no business that doesn’t have challenges. There was a time when I wanted to give up on makeup. I had a studio but business was never coming in because of the location. There was a time that I didn’t even go to the shop for like seven months because it was not even making sense. And I had planned to give up on it. So, a customer just called me one day and said, ‘Can you come and make up for me and my sister?’”
She said after making the woman up, she asked her what she needed to upgrade her business. “And I said I don’t mind if I could get a makeup chair. It goes for about one hundred and something thousand.” She said the woman provided the chair for her, which added professionalism to her makeup craft.
Japa
Victoria said she loves to stay in Nigeria, but because of her daughter who has an eye condition, she wouldn’t mind to japa so that she could provide her with the best of medical care. She said: “Left to me, I want to make it in Nigeria. I see no reason for Japa because Nigeria is a very sweet country. But for my daughter’s sake, I really want to leave the country for my daughter’s health and for her own safety, because she has glaucoma.
“We go for a check-up and I know how crazy and stressful it is for me. When we go to the general hospital for a check-up, we leave for the hospital at 4 AM. Just to get there and collect the card. She can have a better healthcare there. ”
