Where the impact of Covid-19 has been felt by the beauty industry at large, it is mostly small-scale salons operating in the city’s low-income localities, that were hit harder by the pandemic.
Unlike many upscale beauty parlors which could afford to implement social distancing measures and other coronavirus SOPs within their establishments, these home-grown businesses had little opportunity to operate during most of last year. On top of that, restrictions placed on marriage hall timings during wedding season-when salons make a majority of their business- soon put an end to any chances for recovery towards year end. In such circumstances, several small-scale beauticians were left with little choice but to look for alternative sources of income, to make ends meet.
“Most of our clients are from the same locality that we operate in. They are working or lower-middle class women who cannot afford to spend too much time or money on beautification. So there’s seldom anyone who comes to us for elaborate services. It’s mostly women looking for light makeup, threading, facial, hair-dye, waxing, bleaching or eyebrow plucking,” said Hira Talha, a local beautician. “Before Covid-19, my parlor would tend to at least three to four women a day, but now we have barely any clients left at all,” she added.
According to Taha, much of the damage to her business is caused by the government’s order to restrict marriage hall timings. Prior to restrictions, for weddings and parties, her clients would usually come for services late in the evening, after having completed all their household chores. However now that the government has limited operational hours of public venues and most events take place during the day, Taha’s clients find themselves unable to spare any time for parlor visits. “These are lower-middle class women who have to manage everything themselves whenever there is an event. So instead of going to a parlor, they just quickly dab the makeup on themselves at home now. Vanity isn’t their highest priority,” the beautician said.
Like any other industry, the beauty services sector is also impacted by the cost of raw materials-in this case, cosmetics and equipment. However, where small scale parlors usually rely on local brands, cosmetic prices have reportedly gone up by 40 to 50 per cent since the start of the pandemic. As a result of which, many parlors, be they big or small, have had to update their package pricings to meet the growing overheads of operating within a pandemic. “But sadly for small salons, we barely have any clients left, so there’s no use. Brides don’t come to us. Neither to upper class women. We need the government to find an alternative to its marriage hall restrictions, so that our target clients at least have the opportunity to seek our services,” she told The Express Tribune.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2021.
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