With Ms Atai, Brenda Atai Aims to Make Every Woman Feel Good About Themselves

The 28-year-old beauty entrepreneur explains the inspiration behind her new hair line tailored for the modern Ugandan woman

Uganda’s hair extension industry is booming, according to a report from URA, the industry fetched in over 4 billion Ugandan shillings in taxes from January to November 2018. Myriad reasons account for this sudden surge in appetite for artificial hair. It’s trendy to wear fabulous looking hair; it can be long or short, curly or straight or any colour, without the hustle of sitting under a dryer to have your own hair pulled and rolled.

While the industry has for long been dominated by Asian companies supplying this hair, local players are coming in to have a slice of this market share that seems to be growing by the minute. One such player is Brenda Atai who launched her brand, Ms Atai at Holy Crepe last Tuesday evening. The 28-year-old beauty entrepreneur who picked her name from great grandmother describes the brand as ‘customized luxury’, something she believes no hair brand is offering in Kampala.

“Hair is supposed to make you feel good, confident and feminine,” she explains. “There’s a sentimental attachment to it that nothing else offers. Take for example women undergoing chemotherapy who lose their hair,” she continues. “With wigs such as these ones, they are able to feel feminine again and look just as good as every other woman.”

Speaking at the launch, which had an intimate setting with a handful of beauty enthusiasts and media present, Atai explained that Ugandan women are becoming more cosmopolitan as they follow fashion and beauty trends. “That’s why I created this brand with a global approach.”

Ms Atai was born in London last year in November, after months of research and “almost my entire life loving, admiring and wearing all sorts of hair,” she explains. She immediately set up an e-commerce site, sourced a supplier and a team of hair stylists who make the wigs by hand. This she says is very personal to her. “Each piece is created by hand because every customer is different, and I want each of them to feel special,” she adds.

With an e-commerce site, the brand is able to have presence everywhere in the world, whereby she can ship to any customer regardless of what part of the globe they are. This is something she considers “an opportunity we have now as millennials to build globally recognized brands from wherever we are.” One of the countries she’s been shipping to is Uganda, her home.

“It has always been my dream to have a business in Uganda. It’s a personal thing to me, because it being home, I’m able to contribute to the economy of my country whilst sharing my gift with Ugandan women,” she muses. So, last year when an opportunity came her way to travel to Kampala for a friend’s traditional wedding, Atai saw it as an opportunity to launch Ms Atai in Kampala.

Ms Atai provides premium quality virgin human hair at reasonable price points. Her offering includes a variety of styles from curly short bobs and straight shoulder skimming tresses, to fun colours such as platinum blonde. Each of her pieces has a name, which shows how personal the brand is to her.

Shortly after the presentation, she opened a Q and A session with her guests who included Judith Heard, Naira Ali, Mariat Nasasira and more plus media. This went on as a steady flow of cocktails and light bites went their way.

Atai, who was born in Bukedea and raised in London, is confident that Ms Atai is poised to change the game in Uganda’s hair market.

“My dream is to build the biggest beauty brand in East Africa and put a smile on as many women as possible,” she muses before thanking everyone for turning up for her event.

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