Prime
The male beautician with a magical touch
Steven Mukisa (inset) doing a massage at his parlour.
What you need to know:
He has all it takes to knead your skin for stress relief. Talk of women’s make-up for which he is a consultant.
I find the 33-year-old professional beautician and masseur, who is tall, and wearing dreadlocks, engaged with a client. His operation area is a rather spacious room, separated by glass partitioning. Steven Mukisa runs Steve’s Beauty Clinic and Medspa on Kampala Road.
His great entrepreneurship skills are quite visible, as there are feminine items like bags and shoes on sale, on shelves in the waiting area.
A few minutes later, he re-emerges and sits on one of the woven chairs.
He is a professional masseur, dermatologist and beautician; dispelling the belief that professional only refers to white collar jobs. Professionally, he is referred to as a dermocosmetologist.
He has been in the field for at least a decade. During the interview, he points out that contrary to what many think, this kind of work also requires one to be educated, and knowledgeable.
“You are dealing with muscles, and the neural system, and so you have to be very conversant with these areas,” he says. Over the years, he has attended a number of beauty schools, to widen his knowledge.
He says though that finding himself in this field was somewhat a coincidence, and not something he had initially planned to do.
Journey starts
“During my Senior Six vacation, in 1999, I was handpicked along with a few other guys as the pioneer students of a beauty school that had just been opened.
“We were what you would call ‘trials’, to see if the idea of a beauty school was a good one,” he explains.
A few months later, the trial was a success, and the school, which later on came to be known as the Pearl Institute of Cosmetology, opened, located on Makerere Hill Road. Mukisa then became more passionate about cosmetology, and thereafter decided to take it on as a career.
However, this did not go well with his parents who had wanted their first-born son to enroll for a law degree course.
“I'm the first born of four, so my parents thought my career choice didn’t reflect any responsibility, that I was not being a good example to my siblings,” he says.
This caused quite a rift between Mukisa and his family, and he says it took more than five years for his parents to come to terms with his career choice. “When I began appearing on TV and in newspapers, it dawned on them that my field of specialisation was not a bad one, and they liked it,” he emphasises.
Daring it in a woman’s world
There is belief people hold in regard to this profession. In Uganda and the outside world, men that engage in careers that are female -dominated are usually considered to be gay. In this regard, Mukisa disagrees explaining that being gay, is something that is common in very many other fields, not just the beauty and fashion world.
“The thing is that men tend to know what women want, majorly because they relate to those aspects that they look out for in a woman. That is why the best designers in the world are men, and also male hairdressers and stylists do a very exceptional job,” he says.
He also adds that there are both straight and gay men in all the other work dominations like banking, marketing and the many others.
He then goes on to address the issue about the regard in which men of his profession are held.
Keeping it professional
“Since we work with women all the time, people tend to think that we sleep or rather get involved with our clients. This is a wrong observation,” Mukisa says.
He adds however that once in while you will get hit on by your female clients, but as someone running a business, you need to be the better person and keep it professional.
“There will be definitely some clients that like you, since you look good, and they find you attractive. Personally, I have not had these kinds of issues. You have to remind yourself that you have the professional power over the client, and need to act as a professional,” he adds.
Mukisa points out that getting involved with a client may even make the client, not come back, and in the long run, you are bound to run out of business.
The 33-year-old cautions people in his same profession to avoid engaging in unnecessary talk with the clients. It saves one from awkward situations.
“I never discuss politics, my family or religion with my clients. All we talk about is their skin, how to make it better, and everything else beauty-related. If you encourage such talk, with your clients, she may even end up telling you about how her husband did not come home last night, and a lot of unnecessary things,” he says.
As a dermocosmetologist
Aside from offering massage therapy, Mukisa also deals in a number of skin-related ailments that usually affect women.
“Some of the common disorders like stretchmarks can be treated, with use of creams. They are usually a result of an imbalance created under the skin as it stretches, especially in weight gain cases,” he says.
He adds that many times, people do not differentiate between facial creams and body creams, and this is what results in these disorders. He also believes that many women here in Uganda, do not pay much attention to their looks, especially to their skin.
“Many women also think that if someone doesn’t have pimples, then there skin is fine, and this is a very wrong perception,” he says.
He adds that the major issue many women face is aging prematurely. He attributes this to high stress levels, and not taking good care of themselves.
“You find 20-year-old girls that look like 30. She has very tired skin, and to make matters worse, she does not even take time off to take good care of herself,” Mukisa explains.
On the other hand, Mukisa does not agree with people who do not embrace the practice of getting massages, majorly because they think it is a luxury not to be given much thought. “Massage is therapy, and it can be used to correct many ailments. Things like fatigue, and restlessness, insomnia, muscle aches can be cured with a massage,” he says.
Well-schooled but challenged
Over the years, Mukisa has had to take on over 20 courses, at different beauty schools, in Uganda and abroad. “I attended the Pearl Institute of Cosmetology, the International Dermal Institute in Canada, among others,” he says.
Like any other line of work, Mukisa shares some of his daily challenges, which among others include the very impatient clients.
“I work with women most of the time, and you know how impatient a woman can be. By the time someone comes here, they have tried everything and it has failed,” he says. He adds that some of the clients want a problem they have had for over three years to disappear in two weeks.
Clientele
He says that majority of the clients they get are walk-ins and family members that have had relatives and friends come here before.
“I am passionate about my job and that is what matters,”Mukisa concludes.
