By Keletso Mkhwanazi
The concept for an excellent, cutting-edge child salon came to Bonolo Monakedi because she always had trouble locating a salon appropriate for children in her neighbourhood of Atteridgeville in Tshwane. The 32-year-old toyed with the idea for the entire year of 2020 and then launched it in 2021. “I began by tending to my daughter’s hair and the children of my neighbours. On February 20, 2021, we launched it while saving for a large place. The products I was using in my salon were bad, they contained chemicals and parabens, which was the biggest difficulty I was dealing with,” she told Vutivi News.
She also said youngsters were getting attractive hairstyles, but not the finest hydration for their hair and scalp,“I started researching, studying and enrolling in a brief course to get knowledgeable about organic products right away. Then I introduced our own line of @entlekiddies products, which are all manufactured with organic and natural components and are fantastic for treating the scalp and promoting hair growth,” she added.
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Launching their own hair product was their greatest accomplishment, according to Monakedi, “We are launching our second branch month end of August, Children between the ages of six months and 16 are our targeted market. I hire professional and experienced hairstylists only, but we do extra training at Ruutos Academy. And for the products I have, one employee… I trained personally,” she said, adding that she has five employees working on contact but was planning to register them.
Their products, which are packaged in @entlekkidies containers, include leave-in conditioner which costs R110, natural hair butter at R90, hair oil growth at R100, detangler/spritz at R35, shampoo at R57 and edges control at R25. Their manager ensures that customers are well taken care of. “Our clients are prioritised in our salon, and their rights are protected. The Batho Pele principle is our main concern and motto,” said Monakedi.
She complained that they were first negatively impacted by load-shedding, however, they had to come up with a plan to purchase gas burners to heat water during power cuts. “We are a natural hair salon thus we don’t use blowers or hair dryers,” said Monakedi. She said she was able to courier her products throughout South Africa, despite not being granted any government funding.
“We need larger equipment because demand for our items has significantly increased, and the majority of parents want to become distributors of our goods,” she told Vutivi News. They recently won the township Entrepreneur’s Alliance pitch competition, which resulted in them receiving a cash price of R50,000 and mentoring to expand their business. “Our long-term objective is to have this Natural Kids Salon available in all South African townships as well as to have our items available in major retail stores,” said Monakedi.
