Beauty in negligence

Despite there being an abundance of salons there aren’t enough learning avenues for aspiring make-up artists.

LAHORE:

Make-up is an integral part of a woman’s life. Department stores have dedicated floors to the vanity industry and every country is churning out its own brand of make-up. All around the globe, the business of make-up and styling is an industry of its own. However, in Pakistan, being a make-up artist is not even recognised as an actual profession.

Even though make-up is an industry on its own and salons are cropping up on every street corner, there is not a single institution that grants students proper education on make-up. How to work around with different face cuts, application and consistency of the right base, prepping the skin before make-up are all basic things a make-up artist should be taught, but there is no place one can go to acquire this knowledge.

Stylists and make-up artists such as Nabila, Maram and Aabroo, Sabs and Raana Khan, Tariq Amin and Tony&Guy keep an eye out on what is happening internationally and translate looks and concepts for the local market.



“Going to the Middle East or Far East for courses is the easiest and cheapest option for those wanting to study make-up as a professional career,” says Nabila, a well-known stylist. “It is about awareness. Multinational corporations that have entered the market train their employees but that is only because they want to make sales, there is not one university or college that offers professional courses.”

Local make-up artists, who have made it big in the industry, have either invested their own finances to learn how to take on make-up as a profession or they have been funded by multinational corporations.

“I was working at Kryolan when they sent me to Paris for six months for a course to learn styling,” says Beenish Parvez, head stylist for Coke Studio, “it is very tragic universities have their own interests. They are not willing to take a chance and even if they did take the chance, there aren’t that many qualified people who can teach.”

She goes on to say that going to a make-up artist or hair stylist who has no formal training is the same as going to a skin specialist who has never studied dermatology before. Parvez raises a very valid point that it is our labour class that is primarily running this industry. “Not everyone can afford the head stylist and the head stylist cannot possibly attend to everyone during the wedding season when each studio is churning out about 50 brides on average,” she says, “inevitably, the burden falls upon the girls working at these salons to tend to clients. Unfortunately, they are not aware of how to prep skin or the practice of washing brushes before using them on people.”

There are several salons that now provide make-up classes but there is a drawback to those as well. Since the stylists and artists teaching at the salons are themselves working in the market, they refrain from giving out all the information and valuable make-up hacks.

“There is no concept of product expiry in Pakistan. Many a times, salons do not understand that the shelf life of a product is about eight months after it has been opened and it should be immediately discarded afterwards,” continues Nabila, “the government charges less tax from educational institutions and for that reason, you will often find several make-up ‘institutions’; however, in reality, these are simply tax evasion tactics and are not equipped to provide students with accurate knowledge about the art.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2014.

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