Billing for your beauty parlour and cosmetics shop in Madhya Pradesh
The bridal pack, the bangle size and the festival week, kept straight on your phone.
Bhopal's zardosi, the thread behind many a bridal outfit
A bride's outfit and a bangle on her wrist can carry the work of different Madhya Pradesh districts.
- Zari Zardosi, embroidery made with lustrous metallic threads by generations of skilled artisans, is Bhopal's One District One Product. A bride who has zardosi on her outfit often wants her face and hair to match it, and the parlour is her next stop.
- Bagh print, a hand block print in natural red and black colours made at Bagh village, is Dhar district's One District One Product. A printed stole in those colours is the kind of thing a girl picks up with her bangles.
- Indore is called a commercial capital, and soyabean is a kharif crop grown in most of the district. The festival crowds of a city like this reach the parlour and the cosmetics counter in the same week.
The festival bag that adds itself, a regular client's page and the front counter's small sales
The festival bag is one bill that adds itself
Each bindi pack, nail polish, lipstick and dozen of bangles is an item with its own rate. In the pre-festival days you tap them in as the customer picks, and the bill shows its total before she has finished choosing. After Roop Chaudas the week's report reads the lines as counts, bindi packs and dozens of bangles, and next year's bag is bought from them.
The Karwa Chauth client started faster, when the dates are booked early
A woman who comes every Karwa Chauth is known to her page before she sits, with what she had last year. The helper starts from it and does not ask, and the chair is free sooner for the next woman on the bench.
The front counter read apart from the parlour chair
Girls on their way home from school or college stop for clips, bangles and lipstick and pay in coins. Keep those as items on the front counter and the parlour's services as items of their own, so the night's report shows what the counter earned and what the chairs earned.
A bag of many things before Roop Chaudas, a parlour full on the day before Diwali and clips bought for coins
A bag of many things before Roop Chaudas
In 2021 Indore cosmetics traders said customers bought beauty products in bulk around Roop Chaudas, giving the market its long-awaited peak before Diwali. A customer in those days does not buy one thing. She takes bindi, nail polish, a lipstick, bangles and a hair accessory for herself and a few of each for her sister, and the counter holds a heap that you add up with a pen.
The parlour on the day before Diwali, with a bench full of waiting customers
On the day before Diwali the whole town sits on the bench outside the parlour, some with a promised time and some who walked in, each wanting threading, a facial and a hair set. The helper keeps the order of chairs in her head. When the last customer leaves, the women promised a time and the women served are two lists, and they do not agree.
A hair clip, a bangle and a lipstick bought by a girl on her way home
The front counter sells hair clips, bangles and lipsticks to girls on their way back from school and college. A girl takes two or three at a time and pays in coins. By evening the counter has made a good part of the day's money from sales that were never written down.
Tools for a parlour and cosmetics counter in Madhya Pradesh
Bills on your phone
In the Roop Chaudas days the front counter starts the bill with bindi packs and nail polish, and the chair adds threading.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the lipsticks that girls ask for are nearly out, before the pre-Diwali crowd finishes them.
Offers for regular customers
An offer on the bill of the client who comes to the parlour before every festival.
Daily reports
The chair's earnings set beside the counter's coin sales on the days from Roop Chaudas to Diwali, day by day.
What parlour and cosmetics shop owners in Madhya Pradesh ask
On the day before Diwali the bench is full and the helper holds the order in her head. How are the chair-by-chair services billed?
Make a bill for each chair as its service ends, with the services done on it. No list is left in a helper's head: each chair's bill is made before the next client sits down, so the waiting client knows hers is next.
A client's mother comes with her for threading. Does each of them have her own page?
Yes. Give each woman a page of her own. Each service goes on the page of the one who had it, so a mother's visits are not mixed with her daughter's.
A client buys a few of each for her sister's Roop Chaudas bag. Can both bags be on one bill?
Yes. The lines of the two bags go on one bill, one after the other, each small thing at its own rate. If the sister pays herself, make a second bill for her instead.
Karwa Chauth in Indore, at the counter and in the parlour
Before Karwa Chauth 2022 in Indore, a cosmetics shop owner said bangles, bracelets with necklaces, bindi, nail polish and lipstick were selling like hot cakes. For a shop, those five are the lines to keep stocked and counted before the festival.
Indore's beauty parlours were fully booked for Karwa Chauth 2022, with most dates taken two weeks ahead, a beautician told Free Press. A parlour that is full for two weeks has no time to write, so each service is billed as it ends and the festival's takings are read from the bills.