The Karva Chauth blessing for beauty biz

It’s that time of the year again when salons come up with exciting packages, beauty service providers work overtime and the demand for these services touch an all time high, making beauty salons a full-house destination. The festival of Karva chauth takes the Indian beauty sector one notch up as women avail services like never before around this festival.

Grooming remains, trends change

It’s been an age old tradition of Karva chauth when women want to not just dress their best, but look their best too. They want glowing skin, manicured hands, pedicured feet, perfect hair and much more. Applying henna/mehendi on their hands also become a top trend around the festival, thereby, opening up another avenue for salons. Looking at the opportunity, salons recruit skilled mehendi professionals on a contractual basis. The henna prices skyrocket two days before the festival, making profits both for salons as well as mehendi professionals.

While mehendi prices go up, salons offer discounts and packages during this time of the year, taking the competition among brands to the next level. From the big brands to stand alone parlours, this is the time when everyone sees footfall and everyone comes up with packages.

As times become busier and we see the number of working women going up, online aggregators providing on-demand beauty services are also high on this festivity. “The best part about this month is that all three festivals – Dussehra, Karva chauth and Diwali – fall in the same month this year,” says Renu Bisht, Founder, VanityCube.

She also tells us about the kind of offers VanityCube has come up with around Karva chauth. “We’ve come up with tip to toe grooming packages starting from Rs 999 and the luxury packages starting from Rs 1599. Not just that, we have also got bookings for mehendi at home and we are providing that at the price of Rs 800 for two hands. We’ve also tied up with corporate as well as residential societies for mehendi application,” Bisht adds.

While these are just services, many women also book salons or services at home on the day of Karva chauth for make-up, hairstyling and sari draping. “We have a lot of queries around make-up on October 19^th and sari draping also,” Bisht says.

While beauty products and services brand have their Karva chauth offers on point, others are entering this market around the festival too. Taxi aggregator Ola Cabs came up with an offer of providing free mehendi to women at their doorstep on the basis of filling a form.

There certainly is a huge potential for the beauty sector to cash in on such festivals that are all about grooming. With changing times, women and even men are ready to spend higher on grooming around Karva chauth, turning the festival into a blessing for the Indian beauty industry. From Lakme to the neighbourhood parlour, this festival is pure joy.