Maria Latif
SRINAGAR: That pretty hair coloured in streaks, make-up done. She flaunts it.
But then slowly every day, Ruqaya Hamdani’s hair texture was spoiled and the extra- ammonia present in the colour led to near baldness.
The businesswoman’s story is common among thousands of young women who visit beauticians before weddings, parties or for just a get together at home in Kashmir valley.
Doctors say the outwardly glamourous, beautifying parlours are silently taking a toll on nothing but the women’s skin health itself.
Dr Amjad Shah, a dermatologist, says a large chunk of his patients during the summer are those who have “reactions” due to make-up at these parlours.
“The procedures conducted there often lead to serious problems, sometimes for years together,” he says.
In the early nineties, separatist militants who began an armed uprising against New Delhi’s rule here forced beauty salons to close down. There have also been cases when young women who wore jeans pants were shot at.
But with the armed violence having waned significantly, fancy parlours have witnessed a geometrical growth: emerging almost in every locality.
Beauty shop workers even prescribe medicines like Betnovate, Tenovate, Helovate, Hipig and Clovate without knowing their side effects
Dr Shah says the problems arise as these beauty shops have absolutely no guidelines or regulations governing them. And he says the staff there are often untrained professionals and cosmetic procedures performed by them lead to skin ailments.
“They use their own formulas like Lipton tea, powdered orange peel and lemon on their clients’ faces. It reacts with skin and causes rashes, severe irritation and acne,” says Dr Shah.
“In summers (in scorching heat) a lot of brides come to my clinic as they get harmful reactions due to waxing. The procedure damages the follicle, the uppermost layer of skin.”
The skin specialist says the beauty shop workers even prescribe medicines like “Betnovate, Tenovate, Helovate, Hipig and clovate” without knowing their side effects.
Parlour owners say they take care to check training certificates before employing workers. But FreePress spoke to a lot of parlour staff members workers who said they had learnt things by experience.
At one parlour, Shakeela from Bihar state excitingly narrated how she learnt doing facial and hair-colour all by herself.
“My customers are satisfied,” she reacted when asked if she had any sort of professional training at all.
Even many clients feel the same, but then they say the beauty procedures performed in these parlours are quite basic.
Shakeela from Bihar says she learnt doing facial and hair-colour all by herself. But she says “my customers are satisfied.”
“Here parlours don’t have facilities like electric facials, conditioning treatments, body massage, tanning or eyelash perm…instead we do things that can also be done at home like fruit facials, waxing, nail art…,” says Sana, who gave only her first name.
But Farah Qadir, a student, says she is concerned. She says the problem lies with “small parlours” who cannot afford standard infrastructure and trained staff.
“There is a high risk of bacterial and viral infection too due to poor hygiene,” Ms Qadir says.
She says she only goes to reputed beauty shops, but even then prays nothing happens to her skin. “One can never know if a branded beauty product they sell is original of fake which can cause problems.”
