A booming, beautiful business Saturday, 04 September 2010 04:59

DOHA: Beauty parlours are a big and growing business in Qatar. As the purchasing power of nationals is on an upswing, demand for the services of beauty parlours has been steadily increasing.

With a rise in consumerism, beauty treatments are not restricted to the four walls of a room any more.

Some parlours are quite innovative and have included in their range of services facilities such as gymnasiums, Jacuzzis and swimming pools as well.

Beauty treatment centres are in this way building large and loyal clientele bases, instead of continuing to serve motley groups of customers, some on a one-off or occasional basis.

Many of the patrons are regulars and tend to look at beauty treatments in a comprehensive way as they opt for all-round beauty enhancement, including physical exercises, to look fit and attractive.

But, although some expatriate women from higher income groups are part of the revolutionary changes in this business of beauty and personal upkeep, most in the expatriate communities cannot afford the extravagance. Rich and upper middle-class Qatari women are, obviously, more into it.

Come Eid Al Fitr, and beauty parlours do a feverishly brisk business. They are packed to capacity and one has to be lucky to get an elaborate beauty treatment on the eve of the festival.

The leanest time for a beauty salon is the first half of Ramadan, the holy Islamic month of fasting, austerity and self-restraint. Their business usually begins picking up in the latter half of the holy month and the pace gets maddening by the time it is Eid.

There is a sensitive psychological aspect to it as well. In Ramadan, physical contact between husband and wife is extremely restricted so women like to go for extensive beauty care, looking forward to more relaxing times during and after Eid.

According to market sources, there are an estimated 100 beauty centres in the country with most of them concentrated in Doha and the satellite town Al Rayyan, where the population, particularly of nationals, has literally been exploding.

There are small beauty parlours and then there are the big ones. A small parlour may just have one beautician and a helper, while the bigger ones might have as many as 15 to 20 employees.

As a business, parlours are quite popular among Qatari women entrepreneurs, whose number has been rising in recent times, because it is easy to set up and run a beauty care centre since most women are already familiar with beauty techniques and treatments themselves. Again, their clientele and staff are all women, so handling them is not a problem.

The business is, however, not without its own share of problems and challenges. Many parlours downed their shutters permanently when the housing crisis began raising its head around 2006-07 due to skyrocketing rents.

Most parlours operate from villas and villa rentals almost doubled around 2006-08, forcing many beauty parlours to wind up business. The rents have begun easing now but parlour owners complain that they are forced to pay the old “exorbitant” rates.

As said earlier, due to growing affluence, Qatari women are the largest patrons of beauty salons. A woman on average spends anything between QR2,000 and QR5,000 on beauty treatments on the eve of Eid Al Fitr alone.

The treatment can begin two or three days before the Eid night and the expenses, obviously depend on the quality of the beauty centre and the type of service that is availed of.

Women usually go for hair colouring, manicure and pedicure, body scrubbing, facial, eyebrow make-up, hair removal (face and full body). Henna is popular, too.

Most women wanting beauty treatment do not wait until the eve of Eid. On the Eid night women usually do hair brushing. And some 10 days or two weeks before Eid, the women usually get keratin treatments to straighten their hair.

The average expenditure on this treatment ranges anywhere between QR1,500 and QR5,000, depending on the length of hair and the quality of the product. Keratin treatment products usually come from Brazil and Britain.

There have been problems in the past as some keratin products were found containing some toxins, which prompted the municipal authorities to ban them.

Hair colouring usually costs QR300 to QR500, depending, again, on hair length and the type of colour opted for.

The busiest day of the year for a beauty parlour is the eve of Eid. As a result, most beauty centres don’t down their shutters until 7am or even 9am on the Eid day itself due to the huge turnout of customers.

Depending on its size and the range of services provided, a beauty care centre makes on average QR10,000 to QR30,000 in profits per night during the excited run-up to Eid. That’s their season.

With the increase in the expatriate population, it is not only Qatari women who go to these beauty centres. Increasingly, a large number of expatriate women are also availing of their services. But as noted earlier, expatriates tend to be tight-fisted when it comes to spending on beauty treatment.

Modern technology is of late changing the business of beauty salons in Qatar. With the latest hair removal technologies such as IPL (intense pulse light) and laser hair removal techniques being made available, they are becoming more popular than the traditional hair removal techniques that used waxing and threading.

THE PENINSULA

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