Basu: Immigrant's business hangs by a thread
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The last few times I've passed Indira Karn's AMG Unique Threading in the Des Moines skywalk, she's been sitting quietly alone in the big, spare storefront she rents, waiting for clients. It's been nearly two months since she opened, and some days she gets only one to three customers. But Karn is hopeful that once people learn the benefits of threading, they will come.
Only time - and growing intolerance for facial hair - will determine that. Karn offers a service that many Americans are not yet acquainted with. Threading is a hair-removal technique with roots far back in India, performed with a simple cotton thread. Holding one end between her teeth for traction, and using the other to encircle and yank individual hairs, Karn can, in minutes, denude an upper lip, or shape a pair of eyebrows to be more arched, farther apart, or thinner. The resulting appearance is more dramatic or demure, sultry or sincere.
Only time - and growing intolerance for facial hair - will determine that. Karn offers a service that many Americans are not yet acquainted with. Threading is a hair-removal technique with roots far back in India, performed with a simple cotton thread. Holding one end between her teeth for traction, and using the other to encircle and yank individual hairs, Karn can, in minutes, denude an upper lip, or shape a pair of eyebrows to be more arched, farther apart, or thinner. The resulting appearance is more dramatic or demure, sultry or sincere.
In India, threading is an essential part of a woman's regular grooming. Dark Indian hair makes nice flowing tresses, but also less desirable prominent moustaches. Threading is a low- cost, quick and safe solution. It removes hair follicles individually, and can last a month or more. But only in recent years have threading parlors begun opening up in major American cities. There's one around the corner from my mother's building in New York, and frequenting it has been one of the attractions of visiting.
But that's no longer necessary. Threading reached Iowa hesitantly at first - through private services advertised word of mouth or on bulletin boards in Indian grocery stores. Then kiosks started popping up in shopping malls. Karn had a stand at Merle Hay Mall before this. Though originally from India, she moved here in 2006 from Nepal, where she was a licensed beautician and elementary teacher. She and her husband an irrigation engineer, won the immigrant visa lottery. Unable to get hired in either profession, she did clerical and sales jobs before starting her own business.
Threading may be a new service for Iowa, but Karn's path is a well-worn immigrant one: Work a few years, save a little money to invest, open a shop, and put in long hours, usually with family members pitching in. In other American cities, Indian immigrants have moved in to fill particular niches, running subway newsstands or driving taxis. But most people already read newspapers and ride taxis. Karn has to first create the market for threading.
It's happening. Shannon Sandvig is hooked. She came once before with a co-worker and was back Monday morning by herself. Next time she'll bring another friend. Getting her brows threaded is a little periodic indulgence, "my 10-minute break away from the office," she says. She thinks it beats plucking, which she'd have to do for herself, and waxing, which offers less control over shape because a whole row of hairs is removed at a time: "If they screw it up, you're stuck."
Asked if she has always paid attention to her eyebrows, Sandvig laughed and said, "My mother-in-law made a comment, and then I paid attention."
At $10 for a pair of eyebrows (men's, too) and $5 for an upper lip, Karn will have to step up her client base to stay in business. She also does so-called henna "tattoos," ornate drawings on the palms of the hands or feet, using a natural plant dye. But there's even less call for those.
Karn's is one of some 21 million small non-employee businesses in the United States, which have about a 30 percent turnover rate in a year, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. It may seem counter- intuitive in these tight economic times to start a business selling a service for which there is no great clamor. But maybe that's exactly the kind of innovation the times demand: one that helps make life easier, more enjoyable - and less hairy.
At $10 for a pair of eyebrows (men's, too) and $5 for an upper lip, Karn will have to step up her client base to stay in business. She also does so-called henna "tattoos," ornate drawings on the palms of the hands or feet, using a natural plant dye. But there's even less call for those.
Karn's is one of some 21 million small non-employee businesses in the United States, which have about a 30 percent turnover rate in a year, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. It may seem counter- intuitive in these tight economic times to start a business selling a service for which there is no great clamor. But maybe that's exactly the kind of innovation the times demand: one that helps make life easier, more enjoyable - and less hairy.
