Though beauty is only skin deep it seems to have gone deeper than just the epidermis. Going by the proliferation of hair and skin clinics and beauty salons in the city, beauty has got under our skin. It is seen redefined in aspects like-sculpted body, tightened skin, lightened complexion and treated hair. Are we then, at least locally, moving away from the conventional sense of natural beauty?
Its current burst is a landscape of at least 15 to 20 thriving cosmetology centres in the city and as many or more beauty salons for men and women. This pegs the industry to a monthly turnover of roughly, anywhere between, Rs.150 to 200 lakhs and an aspirational consumer base ready to lap treatment and procedures for quick and pretty results. The question that arises at the juncture is about the use of safe practices and of making informed choices.
Divya Vaidya who set up an upmarket salon, Glam, three years ago, says that she noticed the shift early on. “The idea of beauty has definitely undergone change, because of exposure and awareness. The fixation with natural is over. Rebonding hair is treating it chemically and so are the skin treatments. It is just not like how it was before,” she says.
Concurring with her is Elizabeth Chacko, the grandee of beauty industry in Kochi, who opened one of the earliest beauty parlours here, 40 years ago. She says, “There is a mushrooming of beauty and cosmetology outlets and people are making a beeline for anything that goes under the label of beauty. It has a flip side - that of untrained people in the industry. Chemical treatments are now accepted unlike before. The whole concept of beauty has changed. Everyone wants to try out new products.”
Anjali Kurian, RJ, says that a person’s “biofeedback” is of utmost importance. “How one wishes to look is a matter of personal choice. But I believe beauty enhancement and treatments should be out of motivation and not an addiction. It should not become an obsession.”
That being the dangerous fallout of beauty mania is well studied by Dr. Annu Jayan, a cosmetic dermatologist. She has worked in the field in Mumbai and says that the obsession with beauty has not reached unreasonable proportions in the city, something she found in Mumbai. The trend for aesthetic enhancement is less than a decade old but it is peaking. According to her 99 per cent of the cases she treats are ‘justifiable’. For the rest one per cent she offers counselling and dissuades clients from seeking needless treatment. Her consultation for what she terms “the selfie generation” comes along with counselling. “There is peer pressure and thus the need to look good. This can have a psychological effect on youngsters, especially,” she says.
But the general notion that the seekers of aesthetic enhancement are the young is a fallacy because age-defying treatments have looped in the seniors.
Annu says that people in their 30s too are her clients. A factor that goes in favour of these procedures is that they are quick and not time consuming. “In the west they are called lunch-hour procedures and are aimed at office goers who can walk in for quick aesthetic improvement,” she says.
A 20-something who availed himself of hair transplant reasons with deadpan pragmatism. He says, the first look leaves a lasting impression and is thus related to being selected in a job interview.
Dr. Anita Rajah, clinical psychologist, evaluates this explosion of beauty from the point of health. “The alarming trend for me is beauty at the cost of health, of poor lifestyle and of playing around with a person’s self image. The fact that we are living longer than before, there is pressure to look younger even as we age; teenagers are conscious of their looks now more than ever before,” but Anita disagrees that the desire for light skin is more here. She says, “the obsession with fairness is pan-Indian and a woman with straight hair is a stereotype.”
Among the gamut of treatments that range from quick fixes to surgical interventions some of the common ones are skin tightening, lightening, hair transplant, excess hair removal and the Kim Kardashian Vampire facelift. The awareness on these procedures is high according to a customer who says that she read about the treatment before undergoing the procedure. “The clients are aware of the temporary nature of these treatments and of the cost. They know that beauty comes at a price,” she said.
Usha Ravindran (name changed) preparing to participate in a beauty pageant vouches by the body sculpting treatments she has taken for the last one year, “six to seven sittings” that have enabled her a shapely torso and legs. “My plumpness has vanished and I can now participate in the contest confidently,” she says. Fifty-year-old Asha Deepak (name changed) has gone in for double chin reduction and is “totally satisfied.”
“I don’t think there is an obsession about beauty, she says asking a pertinent question, “tell me who does not want to look beautiful, a woman in a purdah, a homemaker and a 70-year-old?” a question that has only one answer. Everybody.
