When my mother took me to Greater Kalash Market in South Delhi to get my brows ‘dealt’ with, I had no idea that this experience would become so intrinsically woven into my life. My mother didn’t indulge in too many beauty treatments, natural was best. She had been blessed, as far as Indians were concerned, with the lightest of skin as if the snow from Simla, where she grew up, had sieved through every pore. She also had light hair in weight and stature. I on the other hand, had more hair than my body justified; not only on my head but my body and my monobrow. She tutted every time she oiled and combed the abundance. Too much hair.
When I turned 13, we made the trip to one of the ubiquitous salons that lined the market streets. We crept in through the alleyways of market sellers and welcomed the brush of warm recirculated air on entering the salon. The sleepiness of the salon crept over us like a warm blanket and the therapist shuffled towards me, to then guide me to the chair. I waited for some comforting words, this won’t hurt a bit. But none came. The chair jolted back and she got to work. The sound of whirring against my soft untouched skin. Reluctant hair being dredged out as if hauling stubborn roots from soil. It did hurt, there was much to be dealt with, and each hair ran a little protest march before acquiescing.
It was seven minutes later, why prolong the torture, when she said Done. I looked up and there I was – all grown up. Eyebrows that lifted my cheekbones and revealed sparkly, rich brow eyes. I almost looked pretty. I smiled and my mother smiled. The deed was done and there was no looking back. Never a tweezer in sight – my eyebrows became my best asset. Did I think it would be become my career. Not once.
Fast forward and into my early thirties, I was pregnant with my second child, having left British Airways as a Brand Manager. I missed my working days but knew that to carve out time with the children and nurture my creative juices, I would have to do my own thing. Entrepreneurship didn’t really exist as a career then but my father had taught me that ‘giving things a go’ was the only way you would really know. He had tried many enterprises, and we lived a life of feast and famine as he started one business while he closed another in travel and fashion. Clothes strewn everywhere, steam irons hissing and us attempting to model the latest range of cottons from the factories in the outskirts of Delhi. This was normal – who would be tied to a desk and who would have a life plan in place?
As I juggled all the normal paraphilia of being a new mother; how to manage prams, going to the gym, finding work and doing my brows – it dawned on me that there was something that would make my life a lot easier. If I didn’t have to travel to the suburbs of London to get my brows threaded, every two weeks, so quite a time-consuming exercise but absolutely vital, I would have acres of hours to play with. I asked myself if threading would work in London and how would I present it. India was having a renaissance in British people’s minds where curry houses and corner shops were metamorphosing into cordon bleu restaurants and an intrinsic part of british people’s lives. Indians were no longer a blot on the landscape, and this was my cue. Threading was a skill that came from China by seas as people migrated, perhaps merchants with wives and domestic staff. Where there is a need, there is a way, and soon sisters, mothers and grandmothers, hunched over each other, shaping brows as part of sisterhood rituals. I decided to take this ancient Indian skill and put it an environment, one that was trusted to entice women to give this ancient and celebrated skill a go.
Surely if they saw the results – women from every walk of life, would also become addicted to the unbeatable results, so placing it in the public domain was not only disruptive and convenient but also free marketing. When women saw other women gasp in delights as they left the chair, with a bounce in their step – they too wanted ‘some of what she’s having’. And, most genius of all –was that I would now have a brow offering on my doorstep –many businesses start out as a personal need and this was no different.
Most department stores were adamant -‘absolutely not’. Their main demographic was not South East Asians and who would sit out in public? As I began to run out of options (there were only a handful of premium department stores) I turned to Fenwick in New Bond Street. I sent my proposal, bound in a clear Muji folder (state of the art stationary staples at the time) and waited. I got the call on my Blackberry. Gill Green, the buyer told me that the chair would sit in the lingerie department and they would give it a go. The day I got the news, I phoned my father. He was beside himself with joy and said that this was just the beginning.
On October 17th 2004, a chair was placed, teetering on the border of lingerie and beauty. As women shopped for the latest in bras, they stared at our empty chair. Noone sat in the chair. Why would they? They hadn’t heard of threading and they were not about to risk their eyebrows. Staff filled the silent spots and I sent cards out to press, inviting (silently begging) for them to come and give us a go. God bless the beauty press because they did exactly that. Soon enough, we had write up, after write up. The Sunday Times claimed that we were the best £15 and fifteen minutes you would ever invest. The Guardian seemed slightly more worried ‘What’s next, bikini lines by the deli counter’. Then Vogue’s Susannah Taylor came in. I was a bag of jitters and the therapist accidently got dye in her eye. She flushed it out swiftly and I thought that was the end of any coverage. A few months later, our chair sat proudly on the glossy beauty pages of April’s edition. My job soon became managing the chairs mushrooming across London – the queues, the phone calls and running home to manage the children, the adrenaline keeping me at an all-time high.
Why was there such a thirst for threading? The nineties had decimated women’s brows as beauty role models told us that skinny was best. The British also had few options other than tweezing and waxing which was unkind to the skin and tricky to get symmetrical precision. Thread would glide along the skin and pick out the hair that needed to be removed and keep the hair that were core to the shape of the brow. No hair was left unconsidered and each removed, was done so by the root. A smooth and long-lasting finish with exceptionally shaped brows ensured that women left feeling a million dollars. I was unprepared for the build-up of demand from customers and every store up and down the UK as well as globally. I did my best to keep up but vowed I would remain focussed to keeping us premium and delivering customer service. The roller coaster ride of opening brow bar after brow bar while keeping service consistently brilliant as we opened across the UK and then New York, nearly broke the back of the business but I know how important brows are to each and every customer. A poor application of nail varnish at a nail bar can be rectified – this did and doesn’t apply to a poor brow shape.
While women shared their stories of bad brow days, they also asked us to help when they were at home. The biggest requests being a pencil to fill in the brows and tame them. At that time, few brands had explored brows as an actual category. The brow pencils I could find under the banners of the big beauty brands, were heavy, flaky and didn’t cater for my brow colour. I worked with my father and his contacts, to find the perfect consistency and shades for our customer base. I then trialled options with our customers when they were in the hot seat. Both therapist and customer, working to find the perfect solution to filling in and shaping brows at home.
Once we had it, we gave them shade names to transport the back to where the inspiration for the brand came from, Mysore (a light brown), Chai (a cool taupe) Cinnamon (a warmer reddish tone), Indian Chocolate (a rich warm brown), Clove (a darker deeper brown), Cardamon (black as intense as the pods of the spice). These shades were placed in the only option available at the time, a wooden barrel with a spoolie at one end to blend the colour. It was all any women needed in their handbag.
Since this time, we have produced many products but rather foolishly felt that we had to move on to modern options which involved plastic. Customers who have stayed with us since 2004, asked where our pencils had gone. We reviewed and thought that it was time to correct the error - the pencils deserved a rebirth. At the same time we wanted to re-imagine them for 2024 and our 20th anniversary. I scratched my head, and after much thought decided that I would like to celebrate with another aspiring entrepreneur who had also pushed the boundaries of british creativity.
I approached Priya Ahluwalia, who is from Indian, Nigerian heritage and celebrates the blend through colourful, cutting-edge fashion. I asked if she could design our pencils and turn them into something that celebrated our heritage and an item to be coveted. Within days she agreed and did just that. Her joy print was intricate and translated perfectly from fashion to beauty – celebrating where we have come from and where are going.
Twenty years on, eyebrow threading has become the norm, placing eyebrows as a fundamental in the beauty regime, along with nails and skincare and Blink has proudly placed an Indian skill at the forefront of British beauty -employing over 200 women to elevate their skill. We have taken a more holistic approach to eyebrows and encouraged women to help oil them, as they do their hair and to encourage massaging the eye zone via Marma points to stimulate hair follicles while promoting wellbeing.
My biggest source of pride is that we have shaped over 20 million eyebrows perhaps the next decade a billion brows? I hope to continue to lead how Brow care evolves and will always look back for answers to our future.
