He goes by the name Zolarisky, a make-up artiste, a make-over expert, a hairdresser, in short a beautician generally.
Zolar in a female attire
Ordinarily, one would not have expected him to excel in an industry where he currently holds sway. And that is not because he is considered a never do well, but rather, due to the fact that the beauty industry of doing make-up, makeover and services like that for clients normally seems to be the exclusive reserve of people of the feminine gender. But for Sola Alebiosu who interestingly has an effeminate stature, and the brain behind “Say Zolar Beauty Planet”, along Kola Road, off Lagos/Abeokuta expressway, Agbado/Ijaye, Lagos State, Nigeria, he seems to be bent on reversing the sexist saying that: “What a man can do, a woman can do better”, to , “What a woman can do, a man can do, not just better, but excellently.”
” Well,I started by running a mobile salon. And by that I mean it was just me and my equipment bag, and I’ll visit people in their homes to make their hair. My bag was basically my salon, ” when exactly was that? He was interrupted with that question to keep a chronological track on his story, and he said, “that was 2007/2008. But I later got hired by a salon to work as a stylist.”
How he started, “Yes, I got trained under someone; that was in 2006 after my National Diploma (ND) in Business Administration from Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State. I was trained at a salon opposite Ikeja Airport Hotel, in Lagos here.”
And guess who is trainer was? His trainer was a he like him. A male trainer and beside that, there is another interesting thing you should know about his trainer he called Mike, an Ibo guy. ” Mike was my boss, he was the model once used on a #500 (five hundred) recharge card of a telecommunication company, I don’t want to mention their name. And when I was with him, I was living at the shop before I left after graduation.”
And that was how he transitted to running a mobile salon he spoke about earlier. Now, how did he get to the first shop where he worked? “One of my clients then, a woman, saw the way I was working as a mobile beautician and she felt I was hardworking, so there was a place I wanted to rent at that time but I could not afford the money the owner of the place was asking for, the money was #45,000 (forty-five thousand naira), so I approached the woman to support me but she said she was about to open a salon too and she wanted me to work as a stylist there and that was how I started with her at Kola Road here.”
Renting his own shop, how did that come about, afterwards? ” While I worked with the woman I started saving money but when the woman saw that I was making money and my clientele was growing fast, she became kind of jealous, so she asked me to leave. But I thank God that by then I had saved some money and some people also supported me, so I opened my own salon too in 2011.”
Starting with a single shop in 2011, how did he begin to expand into 2 big interlinked shops he now uses as his beauty planet, that is not a wrong question to ask, right? “I thank God for my students. I have trained more than 300 students now and I started with just one student. So, the money my students were paying as tuition fees was used in expanding in 2013.”
When asked about those he has met and worked for, Zolar has this to say;
” The first person I’ll mention, I don’t call her my client, she is my friend and that is St. Janet. I call her Mama Yabis, Iya Amuludun, she is my friend and client. I have also worked with Fuji stars Adewale Ayuba, Sule Alao Malaika as a make-up artiste when they were shooting a couple of videos. And I have worked on the set of top thespians like Iyabo Ojo, Antar Laniyan and few others. But one person I so much want to work with very soon is Oga Nla, Wasiu Alabi Pasuma. Though, we have met on locations before but I have not worked with him directly yet.
“Meanwhile, when you talk about popular hip hop artistes, I have worked with a lot of them. The likes of Terry G., Tommy Zino, Skally Mental, Kayefi, Seriki and many others, I have worked with them all. I did the make-up during their video shoots and still remain their favourite man up till now. Most of them come visiting here from time to time, even when they are not shooting videos, just to hang out with their man.”
Why he chose to be a crossdresser like Bobrisky, ” You can’t give what you don’t have. And you need to be proud of yourself for the way God has created you. I believe a day will come that I’ll be one of the top models people would be looking for. I still hope to be a professional model and I know I would work with a lot of companies in Nigeria and overseas. And what you want to give you need to let people see, that is why I use myself as my model.” So, get his point clearly. He is not a crossdresser like Bobrisky but crossdresses occassionally to promote his business. And more importantly, he is straight as he is married to a beautiful woman and has a beautiful daughter as well.
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