Billing for your beauty parlour or cosmetics shop in Tamil Nadu
Threading, a facial, a pack of manjal and a string of bangles, each on the right bill.
Herbal powder by weight beside a threading chair, a festival queue and a bride at the wedding hall
Herbal powder by the weight beside a threading chair
A Tamil Nadu parlour often sells herbal goods beside its services: turmeric powder by the gram, a herbal oil by the bottle, a soap by the piece, with a threading or a facial added. A customer pays for several of them at once, and the person at the chair has to stop, weigh, add and write.
The festival queue and the empty shelf
Before Pongal and Deepavali every woman in the street wants a facial, a hair set and a pack of turmeric to take home. The queue at the chair is long, the packs finish by noon, and a customer who came for turmeric goes to the next shop and takes her facial with her.
The bride at the wedding hall
For a wedding the beautician goes to the hall or the house with her kit, an hour before the muhurtham. The package is agreed over the phone, the payment is taken on the spot, and the paper slip that was to be written afterwards is written two days later, from memory.
Silk towns, mill towns and the city whose women a Tamil Nadu parlour serves
A parlour serves the women of its own district. A few Tamil Nadu districts and what they are known for.
- Kanchipuram silk sarees are worn as bridal and special-occasion wear across South India, and about 5,000 families made them in 2008. A bridal booking in that region begins with a silk saree.
- Coimbatore has many textile mills and is famed for its cotton and dyed fabric, and the women who work there keep a parlour busy on the first days after the wage.
- Chennai's Koyambedu complex has 3,194 shops for perishables on 295 acres, so a city parlour has fresh flowers for a bride's hair nearby.
Tools for services, herbal goods and bridal bookings
Bills on your phone
A bill at the wedding hall with the bridal package and the jasmine flowers priced that morning, made on the spot before the muhurtham.
Low stock warnings
A warning that the turmeric packs and the herbal oil are low, because the festival women come for a facial and a pack together and the pack is gone by noon.
Offers for regular customers
A coupon handed over with the herbal oil she bought at Pongal, taken off her next facial when she comes back.
Many shops, one owner
The parlour in the town and the counter at the wedding hall, each with its own takings under the one account.
Daily reports
Services and herbal goods on separate lines each day, so you see whether the chair or the shelf paid in the festival weeks.
The bride's flowers at that morning's price, oils and powders at the right unit and a regular's page that grows
The bride's flowers, charged at that morning's price
The jasmine for the bride's hair is bought fresh from the flower market that morning, at that morning's price. Add it to the bill as an item with the rate you set that day, so the family sees a clear line for the flowers and you do not pay for them from your own pocket.
The oil rubbed in before the facial, sold after it
Women who wait for the facial watch the girl rub an oil into the hands of the woman in the chair, and half of them ask for that oil when their own turn is over. Keep it as an item with its rate, and the girl adds the bottle to the facial's bill in one tap.
A regular's page across Pongal, Deepavali and her daughter's wedding
The woman who comes every festival has a page that grows with the years. When her daughter's wedding is fixed, you open the page and see what she has had from you and what discount you gave her, and the bridal booking begins from there.
Questions Tamil Nadu parlour and cosmetics shop owners ask about herbal goods and bridal work
The woman in the chair asks for turmeric powder while I am threading. How do I add the weighing without stopping?
Weigh the powder on the scale and add its grams as a line, at the rate for the gram. The weighing takes the time of one tap, so the chair does not wait.
At the wedding hall the family asks what the package covers. Can the bill show the parts?
Yes. Make each part its own item with its own rate: the makeup, the draping, the flowers. The bill lists them and the total is the package.
Does the chair or the shelf gain more in the festival week than in an ordinary week?
Services and goods sit on separate lines, so set the festival week's chair total beside an ordinary week's and do the same for the shelf. The two will not change by the same amount, and the lines show by how much.
Which herbal pack ran out before the facial queue ended on Pongal day?
Open that day's lines. Each pack and oil has its own line, so the one that reached zero while the facials were still going is the one to stock deeper.
Mathi, the women's stores of Chennai
Chennai's Mathi Experience Store, stocked by women's self-help groups, sells herbal oils from the Nilgiris, beauty soaps from Maavilangai and Virali manjal powder from Erode. A parlour that sells herbal goods is next to a shop that sells them as its whole business.
Mathi, a Chennai store run by self-help-group women, sells herbal and household products procured through the State Supply and Marketing Society, and stores are planned in each district. A parlour that stocks local herbal goods will soon find a Mathi store nearer to it.