Image courtesy: Google images (modified)
My favorite Guest Author is back again, and this time with “An Idiot’s guide to beauty parlors”. All you men out there reading this post (I know you are a minority group), this is your go-to-resource for managing the regular visits to the Beauty Parlors to keep your better halves from becoming ‘bitter halves’, if you know what I mean 
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My wife and daughters are regular patrons of Kanya in Mylapore. Kanya was started by cine music director MS Viswanathan’s daughter – Latha about 30 years back. Thanks to helpless fathers and husbands like me, they have now expanded to other locations within Chennai and Bangalore. They seem to be doing quite well and have now started more upmarket salons called Bounce and Oryza. I consider Kanya to be upmarket enough, I don’t dare to imagine the rates in Bounce and Oryza.
Rules of Conduct
The surest way to win your loved one’s heart is to accompany them on a parlour visit and patiently wait for a few hours till they are done. Yes, and don’t show any expression while you settle the bill. You will certainly be asked for feedback from your loved one. Offer measured praise. If you go over-board and praise too much, you are implying that they really needed the parlour treatment. If you praise too little, you are implying that the whole thing was a waste of time. Take the middle path.
When to schedule
The ladies don’t need an excuse for beauty parlour visits. It will generally happen whenever there is any social event coming up. The event need not be a marriage or a party. It can even be a PTA meeting as well. With a wife or daughter at home, you are likely to be doing a lot of picking up and dropping to the parlour almost every other week.
Help your loved one to schedule it at the right time. If they visit the parlour much before the event, the effect will be lost in Chennai’s heat & dust. If they schedule it at the last minute, they will look like plucked chickens. Please understand this – while the ladies love visiting parlours, they don’t want to make it seem obvious. Everyone wants the casually glamorous look.
Services offered
Beauty Parlours offer everything that can make a lady feel good. I am just laying out some basics here so that you are not looking completely lost while discussing a beauty regimen with your loved one.
Bleach – This is done before a facial. Cream, Oxy, Powder bleaches are generally offered. It makes the face look bright. Restrict to a face bleach if you want to save money.
Facial – Lot of varieties available at different rates – fruit, pearl, gold, diamond, chocolate etc. There are mud packs as well. It makes the skin look fresh for atleast a week or so. A must do for ladies in their thirties.
Hair – Hair Spa is the in- thing these days. Simply put, ladies with curly hair try to straighten it. Ladies with straight hair try to curl it. Those who have black hair color it brown. Those who have brown hair try and turn it black. No one is happy with the hair they have got.
Pedicure & Manicure – What a nail-cutter can do at home, will be done at the parlour with great effort and expense.
Massages – Major stress buster. Gift your wife this one at least on special occasions. Don’t make it a habit.
My Beauty Secrets
After a lot of persuasion from my wife, I moved from my usual barber shop to a beauty parlour in the neighborhood a few months back. Though the beautician points out various flaws in my skin and hair, I restrict the services to a hair trim, shave and hair wash. The bill rarely exceeds Rs.150/-. That & a dab of Gokul Santol powder on the face, I am all set to conquer the world. I fail to understand why Jairam Mohan thinks I look like Powerstar. In fact, from a certain angle, you may find in me a certain resemblance to Ajith (of Mankatha fame). But, I am digressing. One good thing about being in the forties is that I have made peace with myself and with the way I look. I am not in the race and I know it. You can’t expect Tendulkar to be at the nets everyday now that he has retired.
What’s the message?
Though memory fades, the girls I lost my heart to, were the nice ones. (Just in case my wife’s friends are reading this, now my heart is firmly at home. I am leading a rather blameless life these days. I am talking about long time back here.) I don’t remember what they wore or whether they used make-up, but I do remember that they had a lovely smile.
If there is anything that I want every girl to understand, it is this – your biggest beauty regimen is your smile. I hope you are blessed with one forever! 
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Given that I also have a daughter who will surely want to go to beauty parlors probably sometime in the next 8-9 odd years, it helps for me to have friends like these who dish out unsolicited advice once in a while. And hey it also doesn’t hurt if we all laugh once in a while, do we 
