IFEOMA ONONYE 
Bimbo Ige is the Managing Director and the CEO of Celeb Laser and Aesthetic Clinic. It is a beauty clinic that has helped many women, both popular and regular regain their confidence. In this interview with IFEOMA ONONYE, Bimbo Ige talks about the reason women are crazy about beauty enhancements, side effects and why everyone needs to clean their colon at least, every week
These days, every woman wants to look gorgeous at all cost. What is the craze about beauty now?
I believe that beauty has always been there, especially now, women are more conscious of themselves . At Celebrity Blizz and Aesthetics Clinic, we don’t want women, especially after childbirth when you are with your husband and you are looking like his mum.
So, it is important to make sure that women are looking amazing as well. You know how our body changes a lot after a child; stomach comes out, stretch marks. You know everything just comes down. we are here to uplift all that, just for the woman to have more confidence to face the whole world.
What inspired you to start your clinic?
It is to help people because I have struggled a lot with things like stretch marks. As a teenager, that was such a struggle to get rid of. I also had skin bumps, like razor bumps and I went everywhere to try and find solutions to them.
I lived in London at the time and there was really nothing out there, especially for black skin, and that was when I got obsessive about the industry, always looking for solutions to problems because, sometimes, it affects you and it affects your self-esteem.
How long have you been in the beauty industry?
I started in 2013. We had a place in London. I started with laser whitening and hair removal. Then, we brought it to Nigeria in 2017. Although, we started with laser teeth whitening and laser hair removal when we moved to Nigeria, we now have more than 45 procedures that we do, which are under five departments.
Can you please tell us about these departments?
We have a dental departmental, where we have two dental nurses working there. We have a teeth whitening department, and that is the one everyone seems to be interested in. As soon as they go in with brown teeth, they come out with white teeth. So, everybody wanted that.
So, we have about three nurses there. Then, we have a glutathione department, which is like an injection department. It is actually a unisex clinic, where we have both male and female clients. For example, if they have like skin issue, or they are feeling depressed or they have like low energy, they would come for glutathione, vitamin C and Collagen.
They can also come for vitamin B12, B12, which help to lift your mood. You know how you feel depressed or down sometimes. It helps to kick you up. Also, weight loss department. We have something like Semaglutide that helps with people that are overweight.
You can just give birth to a child and then you realise that you are 10 kilos overweight, and it is affecting your marriage. It is affecting your relationship. So, you come to us and we would help you to lose all that weight. I handle the bottox and the fillers department.
Fillers and bottox are very important actually, and there is a difference. People think they are one but they are not. So, fillers help women, like if you have a very flat nose, especially for people who have had an accident that has affected their facial features and they would just put fillers in there and it will just help to change the shape.
a lot of people have under-eye circles or dented under-eye, you put fillers there to fill up their under-eye. The complaint that a lot of women come with is that everybody is always saying they look tired and they don’t like it. So, we are there to fill that up. We do lip filler, we do cheekbone fillers, just anything to make them happy.
Do men patronise your clinic too?
We have men, who come to our clinic.
Is this afordable?
Yes, it is very affordable, and people know the clinic for being very affordable and that we use the most quality products ever.
Just to make sure that everybody gets a taste of it, I made sure that I priced it in a way that a student can afford it and a governor can also afford it as well.
It is just averagely priced. It is nothing over the top and we have packages as well for different people. Our prices start from about N25,000 and then it goes up to about N2,000, 000.
Tell us more about the buttocks filler?
Let’s talk about the buttock filler, which is something new, and we are trying to explore it in Nigeria at the moment. So, buttock filler is non-surgical and that is because a lot of people are scared of going under the knife. So, that filler is made up of hyaluronic acid, which is like thick water gel and then it just goes inside the buttock and it fills it up when injected.
Hyaluronic is a compound which we produce in our body already, and that is what makes our skin plump. The older we get, the less it becomes. So, we inject it into our body to fill the buttocks, and that is it. The only thing about it is that it is not permanent.
It can come down after a while because it can get absorbed into the body. This is because the body produces it. So, with age, it gets back into the body. That is why it has zero side effects because it is something we produce in our body.
Plus, when you talk about the side effect, most of the products we use are usually from the UK or America, and they are always branded, so, that if anything should go wrong, there is a bigger company behind you that can stand behind you and explain why.
The bigger companies would have done all the clinical research and experimented to ensure the safety of the products. With some procedures like Semaglutide, which is for weight loss, where a person lose like 10 kilos in a month, it has a lot of side effects but then, we still have to let the client know that what you are about to do can cause you a headache.
Semaglutin can make you have sleepless nights. It can make you vomit. Once we let them know that when they get home and this happens, they are not alarmed, they already know that these are expected, and it doesn’t even happen to everybody and it is just a minority.
Most women want to go for Brazilian Butt Lift, BBL. Have you had a cause to encourage women to embark on BBL?
I will tell you the kind of messages I get on my DMs. Some ladies would be like, ‘ My husband is about to chase me from the house; he is complaining of my body, he is complaining that my buttock is like this and that,’. You would be surprised at the kind of messages I get.
So, a lot of people’s confidence just comes right down, and that is where we come in and help because what we are doing is non- surgical. You can do these fillers and go straight to work immediately. So, it doesn’t really affect anything. It is just an injection.
Do you need it continuously?
Yes, it is not permanent. It lasts for about three to five years. And it is also for women that are very slim, and there is nowhere to take their fat from. So, they can’t have a fat transfer because there is nowhere the fat is coming from.
So, in countries like UAE, most women don’t go under surgeries in Dubai, they just have the injection done. And then, we have someone like Kylie Jennia.
People think she did BBL but she actually did fillers, and you can remove it, and it can be dissolved. You can wake up the next day and say I don’t want it anymore and we can have it dissolved.
How has doing this influenced you personally?
It is amazing, knowing that you are changing people’s lives, and then knowing that something can be done to solve their problems.
Some people come to us to say that they never knew something can be done to restore their confidence, especially when we solve the problem effortlessly, especially with women that have skin issues. Once, we solve the problem and they get so happy. That is it.
Have you had a situation when you felt harassed by an unsatisfied client?
In this industry, that is something that is bound to happen. In this industry, there are some situations, where clients are not always happy. Because we do everything non surgically, so sometimes, in some procedures, it is not an immediate result.
An example is if you do a stretch mark procedure, for some, the results are not immediate. So, we get people sending you messages, especially when they do not know anything about the procedure; they are expecting so much.
So, they will call you like a week after, complaining. Meanwhile, medically, it is written that for the stretch mark to be clear, it would take a month or more, and you know the problem with us in the country is that we do not have patience.
You know that whenever you pay for something, you want the result immediately, and if you are not getting the results as fast as expected, it is natural to panic.
What is your idea and view about women bleaching?
For me, I do not like bleaching be- cause I know that medically, bleaching creams can seep into your skin’s pores and it would affect the kidney, and other vitals. I advise my clients that there are other safer ways to lighten up their skin because, let us be fair about this because sometimes, I understand that dark marks, scars, and hyperpigmentation reduce a woman’s confidence.
And as black women, we have this hyperpigmentation issue, o n e little fall, there is a scar that would remain there for like ever. So, sometimes, you have to explain to people that you can treat that scar but you don’t have to bleach it.
Hydroquinone that is used is actually okay but the instruction that is used in the hydroquinone is that do not use over 14% of the hydroquinone. So, that be- comes our problem because we now use it for years, and this causes thinning of the skin.
The skin starts tearing and it would now destroy the skin for a long time, even for a lifetime. There are instructions in the bleaching creams that we should not use for more than 14 days. Also, what a lot of people do not know is that if they must use anything lightening, even Vitamin C, you must never use it under the sun, because it is a chemical reaction. It will just scatter your skin.
You must use those creams at night only. You just can’t apply those agents and go and sit down under the sun. It will never work. That is where you would start getting dark knuckles, dark marks everywhere, sunburns.
These are indications that there has been a chemical reaction. So, during the day, you have to use something very safe, like Vaseline lotion, and Medics. There are so many safe ways to keep our skin safe and beautiful.
Can you share your thoughts on some natural ways of maintaining your skin?
Number one thing, stay away from the Sun if you want your skin to be amazing. The only good amazing Sun is the Sun you get early in the morning. That’s pure Vitamin D, and that is good for your skin but after that, it can cause some damage.
The other thing is that I take a lot of herbs, I take a lot of green tea, I take Lemon and Ginger almost every day.
Those things are to clear out our system because our food is usually made up of a lot of oil. So, those Ginger, Lemon, they clear out a lot in your system. I also do an enema, which people should do once a week.
What is an enema?
Enema is that stuff you put in your anus to flush your whole colon. It is as important as the way you are washing your skin and brushing your teeth.
It is very important to clear your colon, especially if you are eating meats that take days to digest, and sometimes, they just turn to maggots inside your colon, which could metamorphose into a disease, and these things are very cheap to clear out.
The name of your clinic says celeb. Does it mean you work with a lot of celebrities?
No, it does not mean that. The name just came out like that, just celeb clinic. It was just a catchy name. It does not mean that the clinic is just for celebs. No! We accept every type of client in our clinic.
But do you have actual celebrities as your client?
Yes, of course, we do have a lot of celebrities coming in.
Do they refer you to other celebrities?
A lot. There are a lot of referrals.
Did you dream this was what you were going to do?
No, I didn’t dream that this was what I wanted to do in school. I wanted to be a doctor or lawyer.
What course did you study at the university?
Sciences, I actually ended up doing radiography at university. What I do is medical. Well, I could not be a radiographer because they are not as paid as I wanted and it is not interesting for me and I like to use my brain a lot but it falls under the PRP side of things which is what I do too.
Was it easy transitioning from radiography to beauty?
It was easy transitioning from radiograph because it requires a lot of training, especially coming from the UK, where every eye is on you and nobody has to complain.
I have about 82 certifications and even last year, I went for training. This industry requires a lot of training and retraining.
