Sylvie's Choice

Trends to suit the season ASHA CHOWDARY - TIMES NEWS NETWORK (FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2002)

His hands were a dead giveaway, if you were discerning, but like most of the guests at the Ayur interactive beauticians meet, memories of the lovely tranvestite who hit headlines some years ago, were already in the distant past.The ladies were full of questions for Sylvie, the beautician who had dropped into the city to launch Ayur's new skin care line — ma'am what hair colour do you use, how do you keep your skin so clear, they asked. But no one dared ask her the one question that might have been most pertinent: Is skin care harder for men or women?

Sylvie was in her element all afternoon, tossing hair care tips to all and sundry, brandishing her scissors and holding forth on the ground rules of skin care. There was no doubt that she was dead serious about her work and very up to date in both technique and presentation. "The latest hair style that is making waves up north right now is the babydoll cut," she explains. "It has many layers with a lot of razoring and low lights."

Sylvie finds it strange that women in Bangalore do nothing much with their hair. "You have such wonderful hair down south, but most of the women here just believe in oiling the hair or tying it all up. There are so many interesting things you can do with hair, just by using some imagination."

According to Sylvie, the razor cuts are very happening now, especially after Preity Zinta made the look popular. The hottest hair colour is fire, which has unusual red-orangy blends and there are also the softer shades of wine. "Nowadays, hair procedures involve colouring the hair in parts, each strand in special hues. Perms are also back in a big way, but done differently." As for skin care, Sylvie insists on the therapeutic power of water. "The biggest mistake I've found Indian women making, is that they don't look after the skin properly. Every skin needs attention and women need to take care of it properly, with special treatments for each season."

Sylvie is one of Delhi's leading hair stylists and make up artistes, but she began her specialisation as a doctor at St Luke's hospital in London, delivering babies — "I was the only doctor with purple hair," she laughs. Her love for beauty experiments began at that point and that was when Dr Sylvester Rodgers decided to turn to women's clothes and pursue his own ideas of sexuality. And though things were not easy for the hairdresser who ran a salon as a transvestite, Sylvie held on, did her own item for a beauty show called Khubsoorat and soon became a force to reckon with in the beauty industry.

Sylvie has a Dutch father and an Anglo-Indian mother, and she grew up in Kolkota. She studied medicine for several years and pratised in London before opting to do a course in cosmetology in Australia and a number of beautician courses in the US.

Today her hair studio Sylvie's Salon has clients like Mamta Kulkarni, Jackie Shroff and Arjun Rampal and many other celebrities. "As for your city, I feel that it needs less conservativeness and more beauty consciousness in both hair and skin care," she adds.