Beauty Salons in Inida

Last saturday I was at a Beauty Salon in Mumbai, which in India are known as Beauty Parlours.
So far before going to this salon, I did my manicure and pedicure two times at home; a lady comes to your house and does a "very fast" manicure and pedicure for 150 Rupees (around 3 Euros). It was quite ok, but still I gave the chance to the parlour - just to experience how it was.

It was an amazing afternoon. And stop thinking that it was amazing because I am a typical "I love fashion" girl and stuff, not at all, it was on the other side amazing because it was, as usual, a great place to experience India and the main differences with Colombia.

Which were those differences?

1. There were like 30 employees in the parlour. Even the beauty salon is the best exaple of the indian over offer and under demand of employees. Two people in the reception, like 5 people for coffee and tea, like 6 people for just washing hair, etc ... too many. I have never had four people taking care of me at the same time, as it happened this time: I had one person doing padicure, another doing manicure, another combing my hair and another serving tea and talking to me, all of them simultaneous. It was TOO FUNNY.

2. My manicure and pedicure were done BY MEN. VERY STRAIGHT MEN. I was so shoecked when I saw teh two guys coming to me to start the service, specially since they look very masculine, big hairy hands and stuff, I had the feeling they would be very rude. But it was a beautiful work what they did. In India they do awesome feet and armd massages when you do manicure and pedicure and those guys were brilliant, very professional. In Colombia you never find a man doing manicure or pedicure, never.

3. Many Indian girls (or at least 80 % of the ones that were there) go to the salon 1. to straighten their hair and 2. to do skin treatments. In India girls and some boys as well care a lot of having "fair" skins, which means having very clear or whiter face skin. On the market you find a lot of products for this propose, but on beauty parlours they also offer treatments for that. Once I finished my stuff in the salon and was going to pay, they offered me a "free skin consultation" and just for fun, I took it. "Your skin can look so much better" - " we can do an oxygen treatment, it will look more fair, fresh, bla, bla ..." The price was like 3000 Rupees (like 60 Euros) ... - no thanks.

In general I must say the place we really nice, very good service and locations, but it was not cheap (for my standars)

And now some colombian background: Beauty salons in Colombia are cheaper :-) There is an over offer of them. You can get a manicure for 1,5 USD, easily. They are not only cheaper, but too many, you find one each corner, in certain places. They are small, simple, but they do the job. This over offer is actually one of the reasons why any women can easly afford it, until the point that having a nice hair style and an impecable manicure is one of this tacit society rules, specially if you are a working woman.