Jaycee’s more than just a pretty face. Photo: Vernondo Boshoff
Jaycee Reynolds is not only eye candy; he’s also got a business brain to recon with. The Melkbosstrand model and first runner-up in the Mr Mardi Gras competition has two businesses. We’ve already written about Smallroom Talent Management that manages singing artists. This week he told us about the business that will make him stinking rich.
Over a cappuccino in which is submerged a blob of cream that looks as large as Robben Island, Jaycee talks about House of Hair Extensions. It’s an online shop that started by accident in 2012. Jaycee was doing photography at that time. A female friend with a business brain came across a good hair extension factory in India, and together they decided to start a business.
Eye candy. Photo: Vernondo Boshoff
It started off small. Jaycee
contributed R10 000 and the friend did the same. The rest of the story unfolded organically. With the proceeds of the sale of the hair Jaycee was able to enrol in a hairdressing course.
Hairy tales
Nowadays he sells hair extensions that come from India, China and Europe.
Swathes of hair are put to the test.
The hair extensions from India have stories, Jaycee says, as he sips his cappuccino appreciatively. (Note: Watch that Rob Lowe mouth that is improbably beautiful but has not been surgically enhanced.) “The women shave their hair during religious festivals. The temples sell the hair. Sometimes they use the proceeds to feed the poor.”
The fashion for two-tone hair.
In his stylish home on Atlantic Beach Estate something strange happens… Jaycee tells how he conducts quality tests on the hair extensions. “I first order a sample to test the quality. Then I submerge it in a bath of acid. I wash it with ordinary shampoo that contains salt. I want to see how the hair reacts as it is dead and has no pigment.”
Jaycee has also started presenting a one day course in hair extensions. Attendees get a day’s training in hair extensions, a DVD and a certificate. Hmm, so he’s branching out into teaching, too. He also wants to enter the thriving ethnic hair market. Now this is one young man who is thinking big.
We first interviewed Jaycee shortly before the Mr Mardi Gras pageant. Read the interview here.
