Meet Natasha Saigol — she makes women look their best for a living and has a rather unconventional pastime on her days off. Hairdresser by profession, and a pilot on Sundays, Saigol opens up to The Express Tribune about her two passions.
Saigol started her career as an apprentice to Tariq Amin and trained as a hairdresser under his guidance. After working with Amin, Saigol sought further training to supplement her skill set, and in turn discovered Amna Raja’s professional training class. “Generally, people here are extremely sceptical about training other professionals, and that seems to be the problem,” reveals Saigol. “But Amna was very open to working with me and allowed me to pick her brains, which was the best decision I made.”
The unwillingness to impart one’s expertise to newcomers is not the only problem she feels plagues the professional beauty industry in Pakistan. She highlights a lack of proper training opportunities that can provide guidance to aspiring professionals in Pakistan’s make-up industry, and it appears that the situation may not be much better abroad. “Last year I went for the Rotary Foundation Cultural Exchange Group Study Exchange (GSE) to Indiana and Chicago,” shares Saigol, speaking about her experience at the vocational training programme, “and people were very excited to hear about the work in our industry. However, the places I visited, their training programmes disappointed me.” Saigol feels the vocational training she received was very basic and the professional courses lacked the finesse of craft and depth of knowledge required in this industry.
Her days as a novice are now behind her and she has progressed to opening up her own salon at her residence in GOR 1, Lahore. It is here that she is able to cater to her clients in a truly personalised environment. Salons around Lahore are generally extremely busy and the usual flurry of activity causes one to almost forget to relax. Saigol has been known for her exclusive services for almost a decade. She only takes on clients individually and spends time understanding their hair and the look they would like to achieve.
Such specialised, client-specific service has become a thing of the past. Every salon these days functions as a one-stop solution to a woman’s every need — from hair and make-up, to manicures and pedicures, they do it all. Taking what she felt was a necessary measure to keep up with this trend, Saigol has now launched make-up services at her salon, to complement her expert hair services.
“I’d been doing make-up for a while at Tariq Amin,” reveals Saigol. “It’s a bit of a handicap when you do not offer make-up, and in this day and age, every salon should be all-rounded.”
On her make-up aesthetic, Saigol feels winter brides tend to go for darker colours, hence the eye make-up should primarily be in smokey hues of gold, with berry-coloured lips.
“While I love fashion, and I can talk about styling, but that is not all I want to talk about,” says Saigol. What most people do not know about Saigol is that she earned her Private Pilot Licence in 2012. “I enrolled myself at the Lahore Flying Club and got my licence,” she says. “I fly for fun and, while I love fashion, I go to the flying club every Sunday and switch off.”
“My entire family is into flying,” reveals Saigol, “not commercially of course, but they all enjoy recreational flying and that’s where I get my interest from.”
Saigol started indulging in her unusual hobby at the Ultra Light Flying Club in Walton, Lahore, in 2003. She made sure to clock in her flying hours regularly for the next six years, becoming more and more intrigued by flying as she did. While she is in the air, Saigol feels not only liberated and free, but also a sense of contributing to the world. It appears that for this woman, it is just as important to enrich her personal life as it is to develop her professional one.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 20th, 2013.
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