Beauty West Africa to attract core brands, professionals

MORE than 1,000 brands and over 3,000 beauty professionals, including beauticians, salon owners, distributors and importers, cosmetic and hair product retailers, have signed up for Beauty West Africa, the organisers, Btob Events has said. The U.K.based firm, which disclosed that arrangements have been concluded to host hundreds of international beauty brands at the event in Lagos, noted that the programme would be a free-to-attend three-day trade event. The group said the pro- gramme would showcase the world’s leading cosmetics and hair care brands.

Managing Director of Btob Events, Jamie Hill said: “We are really excited to be hosting Beauty West Africa here in Nigeria. The regional beauty sector is unrivalled globally, in my opinion, with such an emphasis on looking and feeling great. Since first running exhibitions here in this field in 2012 the market has snowballed even in such a short space of time. You see more and more internationally recognised leaders opening up franchise stores, and local offices to service the thriving Nigeria beauty sector.

“There is a real emergence in the shopping mall and retail sector to match customer needs and the growth in middle class people within urbanizing areas. This has seen the introduction of huge names at malls across the country, including MAC and Inglot among many others.

“However, this emerging sector is still dwarfed by the traditional open markets of Nigeria. Nigeria hosts the largest markets across Africa with Onitsha, Aba and also the trade fair complex of Lagos. These areas are collectively responsible for tens of thousands of cosmetic importers and I am pleased to say that Beauty West Africa has official partnerships with them all.”

The event is expected to create opportunities for exporters, manufacturers and suppliers of beauty and cosmetics, as well as regulatory and business experts, the group said.