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Megumi Tanokura uses a cotton string to remove unwanted eyebrow hairs from clients at Graciela salon in Tokyo, Japan. ()

Kawasaki, Japan — Once every three weeks, I treat myself to a facial threading session at Graciela salon in Tokyo, Japan. Graciela is located in the youthful and artistic Kichijoji neighborhood in Tokyo. My heart sighs in relief as I exchange my sandals for salon slippers and enter the clean and hushed hideaway. Gentle music plays in the background of the well-lit room, waiting to soothe me as I anticipate my hour of calm away from the Tokyo rush.

Threading is an ancient method of hair removal, practiced in both Asia and the Middle East, which removes a whole row of hair with the skillful manipulation of a cotton string. Though long known in the East, the practice has also been growing in popularity in the West.

I was a little shocked at first at the price (6300 yen, US$61), yet I dutifully make my way to Graciela, run by Megumi Tanokura, because I simply love the results.

The sessions usually run about an hour to an hour and a half in length. Megumi starts off with a steamer to open my pores, and cleans and dries my face with a hot minty towel. My eyebrows are trimmed and white chalk is applied to make the hairs on my face stand up. Then she skillfully manipulates red and white cotton threads of varying thickness to remove the thick and thin hairs on my face. The session ends with a gentle facial massage, and then a cool-down pack, topped off by a final cleansing and moisturizing.

After the threading session Megumi usually has a cup of tea waiting for me, and I chat with her before leaving. This week, I asked her to explain the inner workings of threading. Hair, Megumi explains, acts as a skin protectant, and as tweezing and shaving strongly stimulate the top layers of the skin, new hairs that grow back are often quite coarse. Threading, however, lightly removes the hair without causing much trauma to the skin, and so the new hairs that grow in are more fine and sparse.

While Megumi also provides shaving services to her clients, she finds threading a much more beneficial form of hair removal. She notes that threading is known to improve circulation and removes dead skin cells, leaving the skin supple. It is also good for acne because as hair follicles are cleaned out, the oxygen acts to deter acne-forming bacteria and oils from settling in the pores. Acne-prone skin also tends to become very rough and thick, but with threading the dead skin is brushed away, leaving the skin soft and supple.

In a city that has 16,000 salons (compared with 2,500 in London), the Tokyo salons are fiercely competitive, and Megumi came upon threading in her search for a niche service she could provide clients. Threading is still largely unknown in Tokyo, although it is catching on in Osaka, where Megumi first trained in threading.

Her clients range in age from the late teens to the 70s, but most of her clients are OLs, “office ladies,” who perform pink-collar tasks such as serving tea and secretarial work, in their 20s and 30s.

The clients also have different types of hair. “There are some people,” Megumi noted, “who have such thick hair that around their mouth and chin they seem like men.” Often these women come to the salon two or three times a month. Others who have fine hair, or aren’t as self-conscious of their facial hair, visit the salon once or twice a year before special celebrations or events.

Prior to becoming a regular client at Graciela, my eyebrows, suffering years of tweezing, had become quite coarse and needed attention every few days. These days my tweezers collect dust as my facial hairs continue to become lighter and less noticeable. It is a little bit of heaven in my life.

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