Bridal Beauty

A beautiful Benarsi silk sari draped around you. Dazzling gold ornaments adorning your neck and hands. Bejeweled bangles clinking together on your wrist, an attractive bindi marking your forehead along with the ornate nethi chutti. Sparkling ear drops in gold, fragrant jasmine around your hair. Strains of the naadaswaram filling the air...

Undoubtedly, the wedding day is a day like no other. On this sacrosanct occassion, one wants to look superlative. With the advances in the field of fashion and beauty, today it is possible for brides and grooms to plan their look for the most important day in their lives. They can assess their strengths and flaws with the look factor in mind and work in those areas that need effort, a few weeks prior to the wedding day. This will ensure that their skin, hair, face, nails-are all immaculately groomed. Today grooms match their brides when it comes to being fastidious about their looks. No longer is it only the bride's prerogative to look good. Mr. G. Ravichandran of Ravi's Executive Package grooms men and testifies that men can be vain too! His clients range from businessmen to movie stars. The concept of bridal beautypackages per se is prevalent only in India. Most parlours have these popular beauty package for marriages. This usually consists of dressing up the bride in her sari, doing up hair and make-up for the reception. They charge about Rs. 1500-Rs.2000 for these services. For other treatment like removal of dark circles around the eyes, strengthening of the hair without distributing its Ph balance, pedicures, manicures and facials, they charge seperately. Brides-to-be are often advised to visit a reputed parlour weeks, if not months, prior to their wedding day so that the beauticians can study their individual needs and work towards meeting them. Mrs. Raj Grover, well known in the beauty circles, has an interesting comment to make on the subject. "I marval at the salons that offer these beauty packages. I do not believe that beauty can come in a package form" she says and adds that in her salon, a customer is treated according to her special needs. Sometimes the client suffers from very dark circles around her eyes, while others have scanty heir or rough and calloused feet. Instead of having a standard package, which skims through the surface of everything, she devotes her attention to the client's Achilles heel so to speak. Mrs. Grover has been in the business for 27 years and has trained at the Vidal sassoon Institute abroad. She regularly practises in international meets and fora where beauticians exchange notes in the trade.

No matter how magnificent the sari or how well applied the make up is, it will fail to make the desired impact if the skin is in a bad shape and the hands resemble those of Neanderthal man. To look into these details we have the beautician of today who makes use of her skilled expertise in the subject to ensure you put your best foot forward. However it is impractical to expect the moon and stars because we have to accept ourselves the way we are and set realistic goals. Anyway, as the well worn maxims go "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" No matter what-your life mate should love you just the way you are-flaws and all. But that shouldn't stop you from looking your best. As Laurence J. Peter said "Every girl should use what Mother Nature gave her before Father Time takes it away!"