Costs Behind Beauty

COVER STORY

Costs Behind Beauty

By Magdalena Phillipo

Flowing hair, trimmed eyebrows above shaded eyelids and thickened eyelashes, with a full smile from prominent lips and a soft and fair skin are qualities of a beautiful woman. A good fragrance and slender fingers, with shiny fingernails, supplement this beauty.

How do women and girls achieve such a look? There are several ways of making the hair beautiful. You either apply a chemical to the hair. A chemical softens the hair thereby making it easy to comb. A chemical straightens the hair thereby making it look long. Other chemicals give the hair a healthy and strong appearances. They also darken or breach it. Or you weave the hair into natural lines.

You may also attach synthetic hairs. Synthetic hairs occur in different lines such as long medium and shorts. They also come in different forms such as lines, weave, pencils and wigs. Synthetic hair is used mainly to achieve length and mass which natural hair cannot achieve.
Shaving eyebrows and drawing an eye-line on their place, applying mascara on the eyelids, lipstick to the lips and lotion to the face achieves the beauty of the face.
Several perfumes make women and girls move with aromatic air.

How much does achieving beauty in this way cost? Money that goes into making a face and body beautiful ranges from few hundreds to several thousands. According to Ester Chilongo, from Mangochi, it takes her K2,500 every month to have dreads and K3,800 to have a weave. It takes Ester K2,500 every six months to have her hair retouched by chemicals.
Siphiwe Nyirenda from Blantyre, spends over K2,000 every month to make her hairs beautiful. She spends about K4,500 to buy Clear Essence, which she applies to her facial skin. She also uses a foundation powder (a skin smoother), which costs K10,000. Mascara costs her about K3,000.

Money is not the only cost. Some of the chemicals that are used cause damage to the beauty.
Siphiwe says chemicals that have high content of hydroquinone lighten the skin but eventually burn the skin.
“I have a friend who used such chemicals. She looked beautiful, but her face began to be burnt in the end,” says she.
Another friend of Siphiwe developed pimples due to chemicals the friend was using.
“Strong hair needs strong chemicals, weak hair needs weak chemicals,” says Stella Gunya from Zomba. She explains that using strong chemicals to weak hairs results to loss of hair and baldness.
“A friend lost hairs for five years,” says Stella.
She says some skin chemicals may cause cancer or may cause sore eyes. A doctor advised another friend of hers to stop using skin lightening creams because it was discovered that chemicals in the skin caused the eye problems she was suffering.
Therefore, behind the luscious hair, face and body a woman you see has, there are financial and, sometimes, disastrous health costs.

Boys and Hairs

Many boys these days prefer stylish hairstyles. In barbershops or salons you find many young people having their hair cut or their hair made into various styles just achieve a smart, cute, masculine, and sexy look.
John Alufandika, a barber and a resident of Kawale in the Capital City of Lilongwe, says many young people these days prefer short hair popularly known as brush. In this style, all hair is cut short.
“In a brush style, young people look smart, and the hair is easy to comb,” explains Alufandika.

Alufandika also says this style of hair “suits all occasions and places such as work, church and party.”
According to Alufandika, another popular hairstyle is office cut. In this kind of style, the hair is cut very short in the sides and back, while leaving hair at the top take a flat shape.
As the word suggests, office cut, this cut is meant for people who want to look executive and businesslike.
Another notable cut is Tyson. Here the sides and a major part of the head are made bald while leaving the crown with significant bush of hair.
A Nigerian cut leaves the bottom of the sides without hair, while Buddha leaves the head with no traces of hair. Buddha is also known with names such as Mpala and mbonga, and is worn by sporty people such as weightlifters.
Hairstyles are not only cuts. Some young people now have gone to hair braiding. In this style, young men keep their hairs long and then braid it into locks. The locks can be made in different styles. People do this if they want to look casual, stylish and modern. Braiding hairs for men is associated with the Hip pop and R&B cultures.
Dreadlocks are also a common style that young men wear. In this style young people keep their hairs grow uncombed. A collection of hairs curls around each other and grow together forming a lock. Those who wear this style say dreadlocks symbolize African roots. Rastafarians wear them as a religious symbol.
The shape of your face actually determines the kind of hairstyle or haircut that is most flattering. The other aspect to consider when choosing a hairstyle is the type of hair you have. A hairstylist is trained in marching hair types and thicknesses to haircuts.

“I like office hair cut because of the nature of my work. I work with Mount Soche Hotel in Blantyre as a waiter. I meet many people of
different social levels, so I always wish look smart and presentable.”
Elias Zimba,
Zingwangwa, Blantyre

I have dreadlocks. They make me look smart and special. People identify me with the dreads. I am not a rasta. I find dreadlocks easy to take care of, because I do not to comb it after washing.
Luso Mainala,
Balaka

By Ernest Mahwayo