Barber puts up own male salon

The good prospects for vanity service, regardless of economic difficulties, pushed an entrepreneur to open the first all straight male salon in Cebu.

Together with his partner Edna P. Soquiño, Alex Dilag invested an estimated half a million pesos to open a small hair re-bonding center in Lahug, situated near the Cebu Business Park (CBP).

"When it comes to vanity or hair fixing, there's no crisis, everybody wants to feel good and look good," said Dilag.

Dilag had been working as a hair expert in one of Cebu's renowned salons for over 10 years, he said he saw the opportunity to open his own, and create a niche over other players in the beauty salon industry, which is to tap the straight male artists to do hair works for male and female clients.

The salon called AleXalon would pioneer the opening of all straight male salon experts, getting away from traditional services, which male hair artists only do hair fixing for men, while female hair dressers including the gays can do both for male and female.

Dilag said that in his years for service as barber in a big salon, he noticed that male hair artists can do more than just fixing hair.

Initially, Dilag maintains a total of eight young male hairdressers, who also had their ground training for years.

In a span of four months after his small space salon opened, Dilag said he slowly gained patronage from male and female clients, mostly are clients from his previous salon employer.

According to Dilag, although it is costly to open a salon, he expects that return of investments will be achieved in the next few months.

"What is important is you have a track record of skills, and clients will just keep coming back," he said.

From an ordinary employee as a barber, Dilag now is an entrepreneur and entered into the promising beauty salon industry in Cebu.

Aside from hair services, Dilag said the male beauty artists are also trained to do make-up and hair-do services for special occasions.

Dilag said because of its advantage over other beauty salons, his rates are competitive to that of the middle to high-end beauty shops, and targets the young professionals, and the sophisticated family market.

Meanwhile, in a separate interview with the country's renowned hair expert David Charlton he said that Philippine market in general, has now embraced vanity as part of the budget, not only for the high-end consumer segments, but down to middle earners, even to lower end markets.