Billing for your beauty parlour and cosmetics shop in Mizoram
A cut, a colour and a facial on one bill, and the tube of colour taken off the count.
Tools for a parlour that sells its time and its products together
Low stock warnings
A mark on the tubes of the colours that sell, so a warning comes before a girl arrives with a photo of exactly that shade.
Credit book (khata)
A page for the mother who will pay next week for her daughter's colour, showing the colour, the day and what is still owed.
Orders to suppliers
An order to the dealer who brings the imported creams and colours, written in the small lots a parlour can hold, with a note of what actually came.
A border trade that brings the creams and a capital's busy streets
A parlour or a cosmetics shop serves the town around it, and what it sells comes from the trade of its district. Two of them.
- Border trade with Myanmar runs through the Zokhawthar trade centre in Champhai, which handles essentials, soft drinks, bread, edibles and electronic gadgets.
- Aizawl's main market held 1,073 traders and sellers in 2019, a large part of the capital's daily crowd of customers.
Tubes of colour counted, one bill that lists every service and a regular's last shade kept
A tube and a half of colour, taken off the count with each job
The colour comes from the dealer in small lots, so a tube and a half is a big bite out of one. Keep the tubes of each colour as stock and put the colour job on the bill as an item. When the job is done, take a tube and a half off the count by hand. When the count shows a lot nearly gone, you ask the dealer for the next one before the girl with the photo comes.
One bill lists every service a girl had, even when her colour set while the next girl was cut
A colour needs time to set, and the girl waits in the chair while you start on the next one. Bill the second girl's cut as soon as it is done, and make the first girl's bill when her colour is rinsed. Each bill carries its own girl's name and every service she had, so a late colour bill never lands on the wrong girl.
A regular's last shade, kept on her page
A girl shows a photo of a look from a Korean serial, and you settle on a shade. Put the shade and the cut in the item name. When she comes back with the same photo on her phone, you read the name, and the two of you decide what to change.
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Imported creams in small lots, a photo on a phone and a colour that is still setting
Imported creams and hair colour, bought in small lots
In Champhai, the district handling most Mizoram-Myanmar trade, fairness creams and hair colour sell briskly, and a cosmetics shop owner there says most customers favour imported products. A shop that stocks them buys a few tubes and a few jars at a time, because the lots are small and the customers know the brands. A tube is sold, you remember to ask for more, and the count is whatever you remember.
A photo on a phone and an exact colour
A girl holds out her phone with a photo and says she wants this cut and this colour. The colour takes a tube and a half, the cut an hour, and the facial she asks for at the same time another half an hour. You tell her the figure out loud and she nods. When the work is done you add it up again, because the figure you said is not written anywhere.
A chair waiting while the colour of the girl before her is setting
Five girls come before a function. One is in the chair with colour on her head, which has to set. Two are waiting, one for a cut and one for a facial. Another walks in and asks whether you can fit her in. While the colour sets, that chair cannot be used, and the girl who wants it stands and waits.
Questions Mizoram beauty parlours ask about colour tubes, services and shades
A girl asks for a hair colour brand I do not hold today. Can I put it on the next order so it comes with the next small lot?
Yes. Add the brand as an item with nothing in stock. When you write the next order to your dealer, the brand sits on the list beside the creams and colours you are ordering. When the lot arrives, note what came, and the count rises by that much.
I stock two brands of hair colour and three of fairness cream. Can I see which brand sold more this month?
Make each brand its own item and open the days of the month. Each brand shows on its own line, so you see which one to ask the dealer for first in the next small lot.
A stylist rents my second chair on Sundays. What do her colour jobs bring against my tubes?
Give her a shop of her own under your account, with her colour jobs as items and her tubes as stock. Then read her Sunday bills beside your own.
A girl is not sure what she wants and asks me to show her the bill of her friend. Can I?
The bill is the friend's, so you ask her first. If she agrees, you can show the services and the shade on her page. If she does not, you describe the service from memory.
Serials from Korea in the living rooms of Mizoram
Scroll.in reports that young people in Aizawl copy hairstyles from Korean serials and look for clothes like those the actors wear.
Korean serials dubbed in Mizo and shown daily on around 10 local TV channels are the most watched programmes in Mizoram, according to Scroll.in. The looks in those serials are the looks girls bring to the chair on their phones.