When Oloruntomi Akintade left banking to pursue beauty full-time, she was not simply changing careers. She was betting on an industry that was still largely informal and relatively fragmented in Nigeria.
Today, Akintade is the founder of YBB Beauty International, with operations in Abuja and Lagos, and is recognised in her biography as the artist who introduced Nano Brows to Nigeria.
Her journey reflects a broader shift in Nigeria’s beauty industry, where technical expertise, specialised services and professional standards are increasingly becoming differentiators.
Akintade’s entry into beauty began long before YBB Beauty. As a secondary-school student in Lagos, she was already known for styling her friends’ hair. After studying Sociology at the University of Lagos and completing her national youth service in Abuja, she launched a beauty business, Maquilage by Tomi, while pursuing a career in banking.
She subsequently worked with Zenith Bank and FCMB, maintaining the two careers simultaneously for several years. The decision to make beauty her primary career came after encouragement from a fellow beauty technician, Onyekachi of Beauty Ateliers.
Akintade eventually applied the discipline she had acquired in banking to an industry she had always been passionate about.
‘I chose beauty, but I chose to pursue it with the rigour I had learned in banking,’ is effectively the trajectory reflected in her professional journey.
Akintade’s transition into permanent makeup was deliberate.
In 2017, she travelled to the United Kingdom to train in permanent makeup, where she graduated at the top of her class. She later undertook additional cosmetology training in the United States, expanding her knowledge beyond the practical application of beauty techniques into the science underpinning aesthetics.
Back in Abuja, she established her practice, initially offering frontal installations, microblading and lash extensions.
But rather than continue operating as a generalist, Akintade chose specialisation.
Her focus increasingly shifted towards brows and lashes, with an emphasis on precision and results. That decision would eventually provide the foundation for YBB Beauty’s positioning in the permanent makeup market.
The pivotal moment came with Nano Brows.
The technique, which emerged from Korea around 2018, caught Akintade’s attention.
According to her biography, she searched for Black practitioners who had mastered the technique and did not find any at the forefront of the field.
Rather than seeing this as a limitation, she saw a market opportunity.
By 2019, she had committed to mastering Nano Brows and began demonstrating the technique
on models in Abuja. At the time, microblading was significantly more familiar to Nigerian consumers, while Nano Brows remained largely unknown.
The early results helped establish the proposition.
Clients responded to the natural appearance of the healed brows, while the successful trials helped reduce some of the hesitation surrounding permanent makeup.
By 2020, Akintade had opened her Lagos studio, further establishing YBB Beauty’s presence and her position as a pioneer of Nano Brows in Nigeria.
The evolution of YBB Beauty reflects an approach that places technical expertise at the centre of the business.
Akintade’s operating philosophy is built around three principles: safety, science and professionalism. The company positions itself not simply as a beauty service provider but as a solution-driven business focused on addressing clients’ aesthetic needs through considered procedures.
That positioning is particularly relevant as Nigeria’s beauty economy becomes more sophisticated.
For operators in the permanent makeup space, differentiation is no longer limited to aesthetics.
Training, hygiene, technical knowledge, client experience and consistency can determine the sustainability of a beauty practice.
Akintade’s strategy has therefore been to build credibility around the craft itself.
The biography notes that she has prioritised results over certificates, reflecting an emphasis on demonstrated technical ability rather than credentials alone.
Akintade’s ambitions extend beyond the growth of her own client base. She intends to train more artists and contribute to a more inclusive permanent makeup industry in Africa.
Her outlook is that as the technique develops, Nano Brows will become an increasingly important part of the repertoire of professional permanent makeup artists.
This could prove significant for an industry where technical knowledge is often acquired through individual practitioners rather than structured professional ecosystems.
For Akintade, building YBB Beauty is therefore also about building knowledge around the discipline.
The company’s name, YBB, stands for Young Black Billionaires, reflecting the founder’s ambition to build a beauty house centred on empowerment, ambition and a new standard of practice.
Akintade’s journey illustrates the commercial possibilities that can emerge when a traditional career skill set is applied to a creative industry.
Banking gave her exposure to structure and discipline. Beauty gave her the opportunity to build around a personal passion. International training provided technical depth, while Nano Brows offered a specialised category through which she could differentiate her business.
Today, YBB Beauty operates across Abuja and Lagos, while Akintade is focused on expandingthe pool of trained practitioners and shaping the future of permanent makeup in Nigeria. Her story is ultimately not just about eyebrows.
It is about identifying an emerging category early, developing the expertise to compete within it and building a business around a standard of service.
For a Nigerian beauty industry moving increasingly towards specialisation and professionalisation, Tomi Akintade is betting that the next phase of growth will belong to practitioners who can combine artistry with science, business discipline and technical excellence.