East Africa

In Togo, women turn to their hairdressers long before health professionals, new study finds

BY Soko Directory Team · October 9, 2026 06:10 pm

KEY POINTS

Bluemind Foundation's Trust Study, conducted with 576 women, examines an overlooked part of mental health systems: trust.

When facing a difficulty, 30% of women surveyed in Togo say they first turn to their hairdresser. Fewer than 1% name a health professional.

The findings come from the Trust Study, released today by Bluemind Foundation ahead of World Mental Health Day on Oct. 10, which this year focuses on lived experience. The exploratory mixed-methods study involved 576 women (205 clients and 371 hairdressers) in Lomé, Kara, Sokodé and Dapaong between April and June 2026. It asks a question often missing from debates about the mental health treatment gap: what happens before someone reaches the health system, and whom do they trust enough to speak to first?

Among the findings

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· 30% of clients surveyed turn first to their hairdresser, after family (41%) and ahead of friends (11%). Fewer than 1% turn first to a health professional.

· 89% of clients interviewed in depth say they tell their hairdresser things they say nowhere else.

· 100% of hairdressers interviewed say they have noticed a client was struggling before she put it into words.

· 99% of clients surveyed would accept, or consider, a referral to professional support from their hairdresser (69% yes, 30% maybe).

Whom clients turn to first when facing a difficulty. Source: Bluemind Foundation, Trust Study 2026.

The study does not suggest that hairdressers should become therapists. It identifies what makes some everyday relationships matter for mental health: repeated contact over time, discretion, nonjudgment, and a degree of distance from family and close friends. Close, but not too close.

That relationship over time also makes change visible. A hairdresser may notice that a regular client is quieter, more withdrawn, or different from usual, sometimes before she says anything.

“Women often already know who they trust enough to speak to first. The question for health systems is what happens next. Trust can make speaking possible, provide an initial form of support and, when more help is needed, open a path toward care. But a referral is only as useful as the care available at the other end.”

— MARIE-ALIX DE PUTTER, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF BLUEMIND FOUNDATION

Trust already exists. Training changes what can be done with it.

Since 2021, Bluemind Foundation‘s Heal by Hair program has trained hairdressers to listen without judgment, keep confidences, recognize signs of distress, respond safely to difficult disclosures, including violence, understand the limits of their role, and refer women to identified professionals.

The Trust Study does not measure the impact of Heal by Hair. It examines the relationship the program is built on. Heal by Hair does not create that relationship; it changes what hairdressers can do with it.

Marie-Alix de Putter, founder and president of Bluemind Foundation, with Heal by Hair ambassadors, Kara, 2026.

Beyond the salon

For health systems, the implications reach well beyond hair salons. Where does trust already exist in communities, and what role can those relationships play in making support, and when necessary formal care, easier to reach?

The question matters most where specialist care is scarce. Nearly 150 million people in Africa live with a mental health condition, and fewer than one in ten receive any form of support. Togo has fewer than ten psychiatrists for more than 9 million people, according to the World Health Organization.