Arshia Chandel grew up doodling flowers on herself with henna cones.
Now a third-year aerospace engineering student at Carleton University, what started as a hobby has grown into henna business Aestheticsbyarshiaa with more than 1,800 Instagram followers.
The Charlatan sat down with Chandel to learn more about her artistic journey and her experience running a small, Instagram-based henna business as a full-time university student.
The Charlatan (TC): How did your henna business begin?
Arshia Chandel (AC): My artistic passion stemmed from my mom doing henna on me when I was a kid. We had henna cones lying around the house, and I’d pick them up and try to draw flowers on my hand. At the time, it wasn’t that good. The summer before coming to university, I started to use the henna cones more, practising on my mom and other family members.
When I got in contact with my roommate in university, I asked, “Do you mind if I bring some henna cones and practice on you?” I started doing henna on my roommate and then other people on my floor and everyone said, “You’re good, you should make an Instagram account.” My friends spread the word, and people started asking me, “Hey, how much do you charge? Hey, do you do henna for events?” As the Instagram account started to grow, I thought, “OK, I could turn this into a business.”
TC: What challenges did you face when starting your business?
AC: Advertising was the biggest challenge for me. Having an Instagram account and not knowing how to spread the word, especially in university where people are primarily there to study, was hard.
There was this incident last year where I put a poster of my henna business on my residence door. I was sharing this residence with three other roommates and they were fine with it, but I got an email from the residence committee and they said, “You’re not allowed to put your poster on your door. Residence is a place for rest, not advertising commercial business.”
TC: How do you balance the artistic elements with the business elements of your practice?
AC: For business to happen, you have to charge your clients. Based on that and how detailed the designs people send me are, I come up with prices for them. But, let’s say someone’s design is out of their budget, we can work around it. I’ll say, “This part of the design is a little too intricate. If we can take this out, we can reach your budget,” and I go from there.
TC: How do you balance your art business with full-time university studies?
AC: Honestly, balancing engineering along with my business is difficult. There are periods where I am unable to take clients. For the past two weeks, I only had two clients because I was swamped with school work. So it’s honestly easier to have a self-owned, self-run business because I’m able to choose my hours.
I will put my program and studying first, but since I have such a flexible schedule, I am still able to make time for my creative hobbies and business.
TC: Do you see yourself continuing your henna business after university?
AC: I think I will. I like doing it and I like meeting new people. Since I usually have one-on-one appointments, I get to know my clients. Lots of people come from different programs and backgrounds, so I get to learn many new things about different programs. For the aspect of getting to know people and seeing how happy people get when I complete the design, I would want to continue my henna business after university.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Featured image provided by Arshia Chandel.
