Men’s beauty salons – mushroom in city

LAHORE: Men beauty salons are gaining popularity in the city tempting youngsters to spend thousands of rupees per month in the name of beautifying themselves, Pakistan Today has learnt. The salons are also founding customers amongst middle income families proving to be an additional financial burden on them.
According to information available with Pakistan Today, studying in co-education institutions was forcing males to go to salons in large numbers while copying the hairstyles of famous actors was also a factor contributing to the sales of these salons.
Services such as hair polish, hair steam, party hair style, hair straightening, herbal facial, facial whitening and skin polish were being offered by various salons while different rates for party make-up and party hairstyles were being charged by salon owners. Blaze On, Dawn, Evergreen, Prince and Depilex Men were the most popular and expensive saloons of the city.
The beauty centres were charging Rs 500 to 5,000 from their customers and mostly trapped young and inexperienced boys by charging hefty amounts from them. Ahmad Umer, a regular customer of beauty salons told Pakistan Today, “I gave Rs 3,500 for hair straightening and was forced to buy a special cream for maintaining the hairstyle”. Umer said that he started going to salons two years ago but now it had become a necessity rather than a luxury.
Parents were also concerned about wastage of money and time by their sons and blamed the media for inciting youngsters to follow the styles of actors and sportsmen.
They complained that boys blindly followed various styles without examining their pros and cons. Student Abrar Tauheed defended going to beauty salons and said, “No one should have an issue if boys want to beautify themselves like girls.”
He said that the trend had flourished in the West for the last three decades and now it had become famous in Pakistan.
Engineering student Farrukh Kamran said that unprofessional people were benefiting from the situation and fleecing young boys. He said that the creams being used by the beauty salons were fake. “I saw a “Made in Canada” tag on one of the creams but when I searched the brand on the Internet, I came to know that it was a Chinese brand,” Kamran said. He said that some street hair dressers also used bleach creams, which could harm the skin and in several cases, boys ended up going to dermatologists.
Kamran said that if anyone had any issue about his skin or hair, he should consult a hair dresser.
Men salon owner Muhammad Saleem told Pakistan Today that the cosmetics used by them were extremely expensive and now hair stylists also charged hefty amounts from customers. He said that facilities such as air conditioning had become a part of their expenditures owing to which they had to increase rates with the passage of time.
Saleem said that some years ago, people only visited salons for hair cutting and shave but now the trend had changed considerably. He said that hair styling was an art and a professional hair stylist costs a lot.