Billing for your beauty parlour or cosmetic shop in Karnataka
A haircut, a facial and a soap on one bill, and the bangles counted by colour on the festival eve.
The broken dozen, the bangle colour and the regular's last visit
The broken dozen taken off the count the same day
When bangles break, take them off the count that day, so the number on the phone matches the box. At the week's end the difference between what you bought and what you sold is breakage you have written down, and not a loss you cannot name. The colour that is truly low is the colour you order.
The bangle box counted by colour before the festival
A bangle counter sells to women who stop for the colour of the evening: green, red, the shade of the sari. Keep each colour as an item counted by the dozen. At closing open the list and see which colours the dozens left, and send the order for those to the wholesaler before the festival.
The soap and the newer gel that customers ask for by the maker's name
Customers ask for Mysore Sandal Soap and the newer products from the same maker by name. Add each as its own item, with the maker in the name. The week's report then shows whether the newer products are catching up with the old soap, and the shelf is stocked from that.
Why a Karnataka parlour loses count of its creams and its bangles
A service that has no stock and a soap that does
A parlour sells a haircut, a facial or a threading, none of which sits on a shelf. The same counter sells soap, a cream or a shampoo sachet, all of which do. The owner knows what was done on each chair, and the soap goes out of the cabinet unrecorded when the chair is busy. At the month's end the stock of creams is short and nobody can say which customer took the last one.
Glass bangles that break in the box and the dozen that goes missing
A road-side bangle counter handles glass all day. Customers try bangles on, a few slip and break, and a box that was a full dozen in the morning has ten in the evening. The count of the stock in the head is the count of the morning. At the end of the week nobody can say whether the bangles were sold, broken or lost.
The cream tub on the chair that is never on the bill
A parlour uses creams, oils and colours on the chair, and a tub is opened for one customer and finished over several. The cost is in the stock count and nowhere on the bill. Part of the gap is the scoop given to a regular as a gift as she leaves, which the owner remembers as a kindness and the shelf remembers as a hole, so the shelf is empty before the notebook says it should be.
The districts where Karnataka's women shop for the occasion
A parlour or a cosmetic counter serves the women of its town, and each district's work and festivals bring them in.
- Silk is mainly grown in Mysuru district, in a state that makes nearly 70% of India's mulberry silk, and Mysuru silk is sold through KSIC; a woman who buys a silk saree there often buys bangles and a bindi with it.
- Dakshina Kannada is famous for red clay roof tiles (Mangalore tiles), cashew nuts and cashew products.
- Belagavi has 24 sugar factories and 200 foundries producing over 70,000 tons of automotive and industrial castings, and the families of the workers there are the parlour's customers on a pay day.
- Kalaburagi is famous for toor dal (pigeon pea), and the district also has large limestone deposits.
Questions Karnataka beauty parlour and cosmetic shop owners ask
Her mother pays the second part of a bride's makeup on the morning. Where do I note who paid?
On the bride's page: the first part with its date, the second with her mother's name. The balance shows until cleared.
My shop has a chair and a bangle counter. Can I see which of the two carried the week?
Yes. Services and bangles are different items, and each day's report lists them item by item, so you add the chair's lines and the counter's lines apart. A soap or a bangle comes off the stock when it is sold, a haircut does not, so the stock list reads only the counter.
One tub of cream is opened for a customer and runs out over several. When do I take it off the count?
Take it off when you open it, so the count holds only the sealed tubs. The tub on the chair is then in use, and you order from the sealed tubs left, not from a guess about how much is in the open one.
Mysore Sandal Soap and the southern bath
Karnataka Soaps and Detergents, maker of Mysore Sandal Soap, reached a record Rs 1,500 crore turnover by March 2024, with 21 new products launched, including shower gels. A cosmetic counter in the state sells beside a maker that is bringing out new products every year.
Around 81 per cent of Karnataka Soaps and Detergents' (Mysore Sandal Soap) sales come from southern states: Andhra Pradesh first, then Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The shelf of a shop in the state is on the home ground of the soap its customers already know.