Beauty parlours, facing stiff competition, are offering discounts to its Eid time customers.
Beauticians said that despite a rapid growth in parlours they are finding it difficult to cope with an unprecedented rush of customers, with more and more beauty conscious women visiting them ahead of Eid.
A growing interest in glamour and fashion are supporting the growing industry, they said.
They said competition was prompting the parlours to come up with attractive discount packages to attract customers ahead of Eid.
Anyone passing by the parlours cannot but notice that they have been redecorated to attract customers.
‘I am waiting here for six hours for a hairdo after booking in advance a week back,’ said Shagufta.
The beauty parlours, which generate business worth over Tk 100 crore, created employment for over 100,000 women beauticians.
Besides well-known parlours like Persona, Bithi’s, Shenaz and Lee, thousands of them, small and big, in the cities like Dhaka and Chittagong and in the towns across the country provide employment to many.
Many training centres and institutes also came up to train young girls keen to become beauticians.
The training helped many women open their own parlours.
A trainee interested to learn how to do a makeup needs to be a high school graduate.
She has to learn cosmetology and artistic skills, said Kaniz Almas, founder of Academic Institute of Beauty and Lifestyle and owner Persona, a reputed beauty parlour.
She said that there is a shortage of professional institutes to train professional beauticians in the country.
She said more institutes could help a faster and proper growth of the industry.
She stressed the need for an association to foster coordination among the parlours and the working professionals working to protect their legitimate interest.
Kaniz Almas said the professionals have taken an initiative to organise a long overdue association.
Some parlours in the capital and the port city also train beauticians who get practical lessons standing beside their seniors.
‘It’s like job training,’ said Jolly Chakma, a trainee beautician at Sonia Beauty Parlour at Nilkhet.
It takes about a year to learn the art of common makeup and bridal makeover, she said.
Most of the parlours provide accommodation and food to trainee workers, and some of them also pay pocket money worth Tk 500 a month, said Jolly.
May Fair, the capital’s first beauty parlour, was established in 1965 by Carmel Hsieh, a Bangladeshi-born Chinese woman.
In 1977, 12 years later, Zarina Asghar opened Living Doll.
Ever since, the city of Dhaka witnessed a rapid growth of beauty parlours and salons for the urban middle class women.
The emergence of a new generation of beauticians, like Farzana Shakil, Sadia Moyeen and Nahid in the 1990s witnessed institutionalisation of training of beauticians.
Equipped with newer gadgets and techniques, the new generation has taken the beauty parlour industry to a new height.
With a stunning sense for décor, they created a new and attractive environment in their outlets.
The ever growing industry motivated a number of men to open parlours for men and take up the profession.
One cannot but avoid noticing grooming centres for men like Persona Adams, Face Wash, Super Cut and the Razors n Scissors.
