Bandlakazi Mazaleni, founder
From a res room to Hout Street.
Bandla Nails wasn't meant to be a business. It was a self-care kit, a few friends at res, and a lot of practice.
It started as self-care.
Bandla was a student living in university residence when she bought a nail kit to look after her own hands. Friends noticed. Then friends of friends. Soon there was a queue outside her door.
Res life is lean, and money was tight. Doing nails gave her an income of her own and a way to take charge of her life, one set at a time.
Out of her shell.
By her own account she was a bit antisocial. A nail business doesn't allow for that. She had to talk to strangers, build her Instagram and TikTok from nothing, and keep up with every trend her clients brought in on their phones.
It made her a better nail tech and, as she puts it, a better person.
“I have been doing my nails here since she started doing nails and I have never looked back.”
33 Hout Street.
Today Bandla works from a studio inside King's Inn Cape Hotel, a minute's walk from Greenmarket Square. Gel, Gel-X, acrylic and freehand art, six days a week.
Some of her first clients from res still book with her.
Room for others.
The plan is a bigger space with more chairs, and to fill them with people who want to get into the industry. Bandla wants to teach them everything she's learned.
And if one young person reads this and starts their own business, nail bar or not, that counts too.