I have been always fascinated by the beauty industry in Amman. It is available, affordable and professional. But what fascinates me most is that it is thriving and on the rise despite of the financial crisis.   For this post, I asked several “Salons” how their business is doing with the financial crisis; their answer did not fail me…  “Never better” every time!

Apparently, there is an increase in the demand for beauty services during times of financial instability. One possible explanation is that since women can’t afford much anyway, they spend their money on fun stuff… What I call retail therapy. But I suspect instinct plays a bigger role here.

What do women do in times of crisis?

I found this very interesting quote. The oldest adage about fashion and the economy is that hemlines rise and fall with the stock market. If we analyze this a bit deeper, we will realize that women are survivors… they need to take care of themselves and their offspring. Therefore they need to feel good about themselves, especially in times of crisis.

If they don’t have partners, they need to attract the right ones, and if they do, they have to keep them… and how better than recreating themselves in times of crisis? This way women make sure there will be someone will do the hunting …. or put food on the table in our modern times…. Now what kind of beauty do we seek?

Well, well, well…Media bombards us with images of slender, young and flawless women offering products that bring back youth in the best cases and preserve it in the worst. This evidently fuels insecurities among women, whose perceptions have been altered to believe that youth is the only acceptable form of beauty. Consequently, we are driven to beauty parlors, hoping to stop time in order to stay young and beautiful. But wait how does that affect us in Amman? and how much does it cost us?

I was talking to my sister in law, a beautiful young woman who celebrates her beauty. We were expressing our shock at the unbelievable increase in prices in beauty industry.  This comes after a visit to trim my hair, something that I seldom do.  I keep postponing that trip to till there is really no option.  The thing with me is that I really get restless sitting on a chair for an hour while someone is pulling my hair with a roll brush and exposing it to extremely hot air…however this is not the point here.

The point is as we were talking, we started calculating how much it costs to stay beautiful all the time… R. started calling her friends, and i started calling salons to get quotes… we gathered around twenty five voices, and ten quotes… a very small group… 

The prices I am naming here are average…not fixed… think of it as more or less… we are talking about average western Ammani women …   Here we go

Total: 1,604 JDs a year

We still have not talked about essential care products that average women use…

Total: 740 JDs a year

Of course we still have not talked about clothing, shoes or gym and special diet food… if someone is a tad more careful… but just FYI… Dietitians cost about 40 JD’s a month (10 JDs a visit) and Gym about 85 every three months… so we are talking about 820 JD

So how mush does that amount to?  3,164 JDs

Not bad, eh?