Twenty-two useful tips for beauty services at home, from the beauticians who do them

Short, practical, and mostly free. Each one is something a beautician on TheHire has told a client more than once. The costs quoted are the typical city figures from the rate card.

Hygiene

1. One spatula, one dip. Then the bin. A spatula back in the wax pot carries the last client's skin to yours. This is the tip.
2. Thread from a reel, in front of you. Not from a pocket.
3. Ask for a fresh file and a fresh sponge. They should already be out. A used sponge in a makeup kit is a breakout the week before a wedding.
4. Steel tools from a pouch, or wiped with alcohol while you watch. Clippers, pushers, extractors, scissors.
5. Your own towel and sheet. Washed after each visit, and a headband that is yours.
6. Hands washed before they start, gloves for colour and waxing. A beautician who sits down and starts is not one to have back.

Money

7. Group the small services. Threading at ₹120, a cleanup at ₹400 and an arms wax at ₹300 in one visit is one visit charge, waived, and beauticians on TheHire discount from the fourth service.
8. Ask "is the visit free if I go ahead?" The ₹150 charge is for cancelled bookings. On a completed one it should be waived, and the quote should say so.
9. A premium facial should come with a sealed kit. ₹1,500 buys a branded gold, diamond or O3+ kit; a premium price with an unbranded jar is the wrong deal.
10. Pay the Rica upgrade where it matters, not everywhere. ₹400 on top for the face, underarms and bikini, and for reactive skin. Hot wax is fine on normal arms and legs.
11. Book a bridal trial and pay for it. On top of ₹9,000, it is the cheapest insurance in the whole wedding.
12. Say the headcount for a group. Four people for a function is one booking with an assistant and a better per-person rate than four separate ones at ₹2,500.
13. Long or very grey hair costs more to colour. The ₹1,200 rate is for a root touch-up; a professional says so on sight, not afterwards.

The day of a function

14. Nothing new on the face in the last fortnight. No new kit, no new base, no peel. The facial is a week before, at the latest.
15. Threading two or three days before, not the morning, so redness is gone.
16. Mehndi two days before the day you want it darkest. Natural henna, never black; a cone that gives black in an hour is a chemical.
17. Finish makeup an hour before you leave, not three. Especially in summer. Ask for primer and setting spray as part of the service.
18. Write the start time in the booking message. The artist arrives two and a half to three hours before the entry time, and the early-morning surcharge was agreed when you booked.
19. Keep a second artist's number from the trial stage. For the one morning a year when it matters.

Skin and hair between visits

20. Sunscreen after every facial, de-tan and peel. Skin is more sensitive to sun for days afterwards; a de-tan at ₹450 without sunscreen is money spent on a tan.
21. No heat, no tight clothes, no gym for a day after waxing. And dry thoroughly in the monsoon; damp folds are where fungal trouble starts.
22. Patch test anything that goes on the scalp or the face for the first time. Inner forearm, 24 to 48 hours. Colour, bleach, keratin, a new kit. The beautician should offer; if not, ask.

Four more for hair

23. A monthly hair spa at ₹900 does more than one keratin a year. Especially in the monsoon.
24. Tell the beautician about henna in the last six months before any colour. Henna over chemical colour, or the other way, is where hair goes orange or green.
25. Keratin at ₹4,500 needs a strand test and a straightener with a temperature setting. No test, no iron with a dial, no treatment.
26. A blow-dry at ₹400 before an evening is cheaper than fixing hair the next day. Book it with the makeup.

Three for men

27. A haircut at ₹250 and a beard trim at ₹150 a few days before a wedding, not the morning; a nick needs a day to settle.
28. Men's skin takes a cleanup as well as anyone's. ₹700 for a men's facial or cleanup, a week before the function.
29. Groom styling at ₹3,500 is a real booking, with a trial if there will be many photographs. Most beauticians on TheHire do both; say so when you post.

Four for booking well

30. Book the everyday services two or three days ahead, not the same morning. A same-day booking costs about 20 percent more and gets you whoever happened to be free rather than the person you wanted.
31. Say the services in the request, not "some beauty work". A beautician who knows it is a cleanup, a full legs wax and threading arrives with the right kit and the right amount of time. One who does not will be short of wax at the second leg.
32. Keep one beautician for the everyday services once you find a good one. The hygiene you checked on the first visit is the hygiene you get every time, and a regular client gets the good slot before a festival rather than after it.
33. Write the review honestly, good or bad. It is public on TheHire, it is what the next person in your building reads, and the one thing a review can say that a price list cannot is whether the spatula went back in the pot.

Related tips you might want next

The wedding is three trades at once: the beautician for the faces, the event services for the venue and the photographs, the tailor for the blouse the draping depends on. The guides for those two pick up where these tips stop, and the yoga and fitness guides cover what the beauticians say to the people who ask about skin: sleep, water and less sun.