Jeddah Municipality is conducting raids on beauty salons for using the services of beauticians who are not under the sponsorship of the owners of the salons, which allegedly run in the Kingdom under the garb of tailoring shops. A number of beauty parlors in Jeddah have been closed down and many staff members are under arrest and facing deportation. “I am facing a monthly loss of SR20,000. I had 13 women workers but they were all under their husbands' or fathers' Iqama. They all belonged to respectable families, but were arrested by passport department women officers as if they were illegal residents,” said a salon owner. Salons are a big business here. There are approximately 6,000 beauty salons in Jeddah alone. Most of these are run by expatriate women, many of whom name the salons after the Saudi owners. Most of the beauticians in these salons are locally hired expatriate women who are under the sponsorship of their husbands or fathers. Madawi Al-Hasson, member of the board of directors of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), does not see any harm in expatriate women managing and working in beauty salons even if they are under the sponsorship of their relatives. “Expatriate women should be allowed to work even if they are under the Iqama of their husbands or fathers. In fact, many expatriate housewives want to work because it is good for them personally and financially and there is nothing wrong in it,” she told the Saudi Gazette. “I have invested a lot of money to open a beauty salon. Now I am faced with a difficult situation and my only option is to invest more money to fulfill the conditions of the Municipality and avoid a penalty,” said an expatriate owner of a salon. Muzaffar Baksh, head of information, files system and city planning in Jeddah Municipality, told the Saudi Gazette that the women's section in the Municipality is only doing its job by checking the beauty salons. “We made announcements in the media asking tailoring shops to follow the rules, but it seems they did not pay heed to our warning,” he said. The beauty salon business is illegal here. A 1968 Cabinet ruling states that women are not allowed to open or establish a place for make-up and hairstyling for fashion. But salons are operating under the license obtained for women's tailoring shops and fashion designing. “It is well known that all beauty salons are run in the Kingdom under the license of tailoring shops since authorities don't give licenses to open beauty salons. Therefore, this should be corrected first before implementing any other rules,” said Al-Hasson. The new raids on the salons have come during the peak holiday season when beauticians make a fast buck. But some of these beauticians are attending to their trusted customers behind closed doors. A popular beauty parlor owner said the Municipality women's team also closed down the Moroccan bath facility which is very popular among Saudi customers. She said she was harassed by officials for myriad other reasons, including restrictions against certain types of spa treatments and massages. The Municipality also instructed her to obtain separate permission for Internet café, exercise room and cafeteria facilities that add significance to a beauty salon. The beauty salon sector is also one of the areas of Saudization meant to promote and support skilled Saudi women. The government is now trying to replace foreign workers with Saudis by restricting the number of foreign beauticians. However, there is a high demand for skills and training as salon work was traditionally perceived by Saudis as low status employment. Although Saudi women are keen to own salons, they still depend heavily on expatriate labor. Al-Hasson believes that Saudi women are still hesitating in choosing the profession of beautician. “Their mindset and social taboos are preventing them from working as beauticians,” she said. An expatriate beautician earns about SR1,200 to SR1,500 a month. The salary scale of a Saudi beautician is more than SR1,500. “I send my employees abroad to learn new techniques in spa services. It's easier to send non-Saudi workers to attend these skill-enhancing courses because Saudi families do not permit their women to travel alone,” said another owner of a beauty business enterprise. Beauty salon owners also complained about the difficulties they face in getting visas to bring beauticians from foreign countries. “I need up to 20 female workers, but according to the law I can only sponsor three foreign workers. Therefore I was forced to hire illegal workers here,” said a beauty salon owner. However, the JCCI Khadija bint Khuwalud Center started beauty salon academic programs for Saudi women, six years ago, Al-Hasson pointed out. The center has already recommended to the authorities that women should be allowed to open beauty salons. According to the Diagonal Reports of November 2007, a researching institute which tracks the wellness and beauty market worldwide, “the Saudi Arabian Beauty Market is the largest in the Middle East and it shows double digit growth. There is a strong demand for premium beauty and spa services due to relatively high levels of discretionary income in the KSA.” The report of the Saudi Arabian Professional Beauty Market said that the ‘beauty and wellness products, and services market,' is worth more than $2bn. The Saudi market is structured somewhat differently to other similar sized cosmetic markets worldwide. The report says that the rapid growth of the hair and beauty services sector in the Kingdom also means that many salon and spa businesses are very recent. An indication of the newness of the market is that the first Saudi Beauty Exhibition is planned this year. __
