Ugandan eager to make plant-based hair popular

A Ugandan entrepreneur is manufacturing top-quality false hair products such as extensions and wigs from banana stems as an alternative for non-biodegradable synthetic hair that is damaging the environment.
Ms Juliet Kakwerre Tumusiime, the chief executive and co-founder of Cheveux Organique, told Sunday Monitor that her hair cottage venture produces plant-based hair extensions in three types. These include: Cheveux Black, Cheveux Brown, and Cheveux Blonde. The hair cottage currently employs 15 workers and between 20 to 50 casual labourers, depending on the season and demand.
The products that are handcrafted by a team of artisans are, Ms Tumusiime notes, durable, eco-friendly, hypoallergenic (no allergic reactions) and non-irritant. 
She adds that they do not produce bad odour, are biodegradable, reusable and can be managed like natural hair. The flagship hair extensions have been tested and are highly sought after in regional and international markets, with Cheveux Black faring well among Ms Tumusiime’s clientele.
“It is what people relate with the most because of the colour of the skin of Africans,” she said of Cheveux Black’s popularity, adding, “We don’t decline to make the other colours. It depends on what the customers want. Black, brown and blonde are the colours our customers demand the most.”
More than functional
The hair made by Cheveux Organique is easy to style, wash, treat, and colour. It can be looked after and handled like natural human hair. It can also be rewashed with warm water, and conditioned with detangling cream. The hair can be oiled when dry, coloured and can withstand dryers as well as heat.

Besides being non-toxic to humans, the hair is amenable to treatment processes. Ms Tumusiime says her products do not rub people with extremely sensitive skin the wrong way since they have a natural sheen and are soft on touch.
“Ugandan mothers and young professionals are my biggest clients. This is because of the nature of our product which does not itch. And many mothers also prefer it for their children because of that reason,” she revealed.
Challenges
Ms Tumusiime, however, admits that the cost of her products pose a stumbling block. A pack of hair weighing 100 grammes costs Shs150,000. The Cheveux Organique chief executive says this is “because the production process is very expensive and capital intensive.”
Although the hair extensions, which Ms Tumusiime says “can only be used for plaiting” are expensive, customers like Ms Ruman say they get “the value for our money.”
The products can only be purchased through booking either online or offsite. Ms Tumusiime also exports her products to the United States of America, Kenya, the United Kingdom and the DR Congo.
Another challenge, Ms Tumusiime says her business is facing is the cost of maintaining experienced staff and transportation. It is also hardly helpful that production is hampered by low mechanisation.
“Our clients make orders and we make the product. It takes me a week to produce one kilogramme of hair. It costs me more to transport the stems from Mubende to Kampala than the raw material,” she revealed, adding, “We are developing regional hubs for the bulking of the raw material and training farmers. We work with women, the youth and disabled persons. We want to be as inclusive as possible.”
Already, Cheveux Organique is toying with the idea of putting in place a hire purchase arrangement that will allow farmers, reveals Ms Tumusiime, “buy the fibre extraction machines so that they can produce the fibre on their farms.” Cheveux Organique will then pick the final material from the farms in a move tailored to reduce the “cost of production.”
Sustainability
Able to withstand up to 400 degrees of heat and hold a curl, Cheveux Organique’s plant-based hair “can be sustained through banana farming” as perDr Barirega Akankwasah, the executive director of the National Environment Management Authority (Nema). 
According to Uganda Bureau of Statistics’ 2018 Annual Agricultural Survey, matooke, a type of cooking bananas, is a major crop grown mainly in the western, central and parts of eastern Uganda. Matooke is grown by 47 percent of the agricultural households on a land area of about 579,000 hectares. The annual production of matooke in 2018 was 6.5 million tonnes, with a yield of 12.3 metric tonnes per hectare.
In their policy brief titled ‘Biodiversity of Bananas on Farms in Uganda’, Ms Svetlana Edmeades, Ms Melinda Smale and Ms Deborah Karamura note that the average per capita annual consumption of bananas in Uganda is the highest in the world. It is estimated at close to one kilogramme per person per day. Bananas are consumed as fruit; prepared by cooking, roasting, or drying; and fermented for the production of banana juice and alcoholic beverages (beer, wine, and gin).
According to Tridge.com, the export value of Uganda was $2.51 million with an export volume of 921.07 metric tonnes in 2021.
Sourcing
Ms Tumusiime currently sources the raw material from banana farmers in Mubende, Kiboga, and Kampala (Mperewe) districts.
“We use specific banana species for the production of our hair extensions. We prefer mature stems from which bananas have been harvested,” she told Sunday Monitor, adding, “The waste generated during our production process is used for handcrafts like baskets, lampshades, and chair decorations.”
It helps a great deal that Uganda is one of the largest producers of bananas in the world. Banana stems have for a long time been treated as waste in the country. Cheveux Organique has showed that they can be a gold mine.
“Through the production of the biodegradable hair, we are addressing both health and environmental disparities in the hair extensions industry,” Ms Tumusiime said. 
“In doing so, we empower women to make informed decisions about beauty products available to them by making information accessible and serving as a resource. We all deserve healthy alternatives.”
Inspiration
While working with USAID, Ms Tumusiime picked the idea of plant-based hair while working on a USAID project that zoomed in on banana research on a mundane consumption angle.
“I would visit these farms and I would notice that they were using the dry banana fibre to make crafts. I noticed that there was a part of the fibre that was being underutilised and so I had an idea to repurpose it to make this plant-based hair,” the mother of three daughters revealed.
Her experiences when it comes to pangs brought on by synthetic hair also encouraged the repurposing of banana fibres. To top things up were the ecological benefits of plant-based hair. Experts say synthetic hair—worn by millions around the world—harms the environment, especially in Africa where it is big business.
“Synthetic hair leads to clogged waterways and encourages growth of algae, which harms marine life. Synthetic hair is not biodegradable and can leach chemicals into the earth,” Ms Tumusiime told Sunday Monitor.
Dr Akankwasah agrees, adding that synthetic materials pollute the soil, water, and the air when the waste is burnt. Nema has, however, not yet tracked the volume of imports and discarded hair extensions and wigs in Uganda.
Through its proposed “Re-syko Initiative”, Cheveux Organique intends to focus on reducing the amount of waste produced from plastic synthetic hair extensions. It will do this by collecting the waste and disposing it off in the right way thus, promoting the future of a more sustainable hair industry.
Under this initiative, Cheveux Organique expects to generate revenue from recycling services provided directly to customers with plastic-synthetic hair waste, and reselling valuable degradation by-products of the process.
Asked how synthetic materials should be disposed of after use, Dr Akankwasah said: “All municipal solid wastes and otherwise are supposed to be disposed through a licensed waste handler. Better collection and sorting, then recycling or destroying should be by the licensed waste handler.”

Testimonies
Ms Patricia Ruman, who runs La Epic Boutique in Kiwatule, Kampala, said: “I have used Cheveux Organique hair extensions twice and they are very light on the head and soft. Synthetic hair extensions itch while those made by Cheveux Organique do not itch.”
Ms Lydia Mirembe, the head of the hairdresser’s department at Next Salon Uganda in Ntinda, Kampala, said the hair extensions have a weightlessness that endears them to many.
 “Cheveux Organique hair extensions have solved [the] problem [of itching and dandruff] for my clients,” Mirembe said.
Dr Barirega Akankwasah, the executive director of the National Environment Management Authority (Nema), lauded Cheveux Organique for an eco-friendly product.
“Organic materials easily get back into circulation through biodegradation. This is different from non-biodegradable materials which pollute our soils and water bodies and air when burnt,” he said, before advising the hair cottage to “submit to Nema an application for environment certification.”