Done Your Derm Yet?

Academies, consultation and courses, packages, lucky dips, discounts—parlours are going to great lengths to attract you. But not everyone's into braving it all just for looking good. Like Neelima Mehra, 40, a Gurgaon-based interior designer, who increasingly dreads her visits to the beauty parlour. "Walking into a parlour was supposed to make you feel good," she says. "Now the minute I enter I have to brace myself. It's like handling several aggressive salesmen all at once. There are several well-rehearsed disapproving looks, shuddering scrutiny and lots of 'madam, you should switch from a regular facial to a gold facial or a galvanic facial or you desperately need a full body scrub and an anti-cellulite massage', or whatever is 'new'. And of course, then they wonder aloud what is keeping me from my dream body? Why am I not joining their fitness centre? It's a violating experience."