Gaining Hands on Experience

Due to her love for the subject and grasp of knowledge, within three months Nirmala had graduated from a student to a student cum trainee at the parlour, where she was paid a monthly stipend of Rs.250.

Post her course, she was hired as a fulltime beautician at the parlour for a salary of Rs.800 per month. For four years she continued to work and grew in position as a senior beauty consultant at the parlour.

However, due to ill health and other family problems, the owner of the parlour shut shop.

"After four years of work, I was all of a sudden jobless and was confused regarding what my next step should be. That's when one of my clients in the parlour called me to her home for certain beauty service," she explains.

In a span of four hours work where I gave my client a facial, manicure, pedicure, threading and massage I earned Rs.300. The client then recommended me to a few of her friends and thus the chain started, I got myself accustomed to the routine of going to peoples home and offering my services.

When the Going Got Tough

"Although I got a headstart, the going wasn't easy. I did not have landline at home or a cell phone with me at that time to confirm. So there were days when I would go all the way to the clients place only to be asked to come some other day. It was frustrating," she remembers.

Also people would not go for complete beauty treatments. If one client required waxing, the other would want only hair styling.

"Going all the way to a client's home just for a twenty rupee threading wasn't really feasible. So I had to see days when there was no work at all. I knew if I had to make this option work, the monthly income had to be atleast Rs.800 if not more," she explains.

Until she built a commendable amount of clientele, the collection in the initial few months were really dismal.

"But I survived!"

"Once my work started getting noticed, the frequency of the calls increased. As soon as my work caught up the first thing that I did was to install a landline at home," she says.

Irrespective of the work stability she kept herself at par with the latest industry trends. She read all kinds of beauty magazines and then practiced those styles at home.

"I would also go to parlours to get my eyebrows done or to trim my hair and observe any new trends that I could possibly inculcate - the way they behaved with the clients, the tips that they gave, the pricing etc," she explains.

Soon she started getting calls for make-up and hair styling especially for marriages and parties.