Women find common thread at area salon

The Baltimore Sun

Nestled in the shadows of towering apartment and office buildings along a busy stretch of Joppa Road, the salon would be easy to miss if it didn't look like a house that has sprouted from nowhere with its creamy beige vinyl siding and covered porch.

Most of the customers who find their way to Usha's Salon and Day Spa in Towson are like 16-year-old Jasmine Osima and her mother, Joan, of Owings Mills.

Mother and daughter began making biweekly visits about a year ago after a family friend raved about owner Usha Gupta's increasingly popular use of threading, an ancient facial hair-removal process. Jasmine and Joan had never heard of threading, but they trusted the friend's recommendation.

"It was a new experience," said Jasmine, who learned she is allergic to wax when she began having her eyebrows done a couple years ago. "And threading lasts longer than waxing."

So it begins for virtually all of Gupta's faithful clients - more than 1,000, by her count - who flock to the cozy salon, a two-story building about halfway between the York Road traffic circle and Providence Road. In addition to threading, the shop offers typical salon fare - haircuts, manicures, pedicures and massages.

Since it opened 13 years ago, Usha's has morphed into a mecca for women who come to quench a curiosity about threading that is fueled almost entirely by word-of-mouth.

Gupta - who learned threading 32 years ago in her native Nagpur, a city in central India - is widely credited with bringing the tradition to the Baltimore area in 1993, the year she and her husband, Shashi, moved to the United States.

When she started the salon - which was on Harford Road in Parkville until moving to York Road just over a year ago - she offered her threading services for free to persuade her customers to give it a try.

Now they return to Usha's even after having moved to neighboring states such as Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia or to farther flung cities like Boston and New York, lured by a hair-removal process that promises to hurt less and last longer.

Inside the salon, decorated in rich hues of gold and burgundy, the atmosphere is casual. An afternoon sun streams through the picture windows that stretch across the building's front. Stray strands of used thread dot the light-colored hardwood floors.

Though idle chatter is fairly minimal at the two stations where threading is done - the precision work takes considerable concentration - Usha's customers are at ease. Repeat customers know the drill: have a seat and close your eyes.

Nearly everyone is dazzled the first time they experience it.

With one loose end of a length of polyester thread fixed between her front teeth, Gupta loops the strand's midsection around the thumb, index and middle fingers of one hand to double the thread. She uses her other hand to grasp the strand's other loose end. She then works her fingers like a windmill as she rapidly twists the strands together.

The customer puts one hand on her forehead and uses the other hand to pull down her eyelid to make the skin taut to prevent cuts and reduce pain.

Pressing the twisted portion of thread against the hair, Gupta, almost indiscernibly, bobs her head up and down to coax the hair out from its root. Leaning toward the thread loosens it so she can maneuver it into just the right spot and trap the hair. Pulling her head back gently allows her to tighten the thread around the hair and pull it out.

In about five minutes, she has finished both eyebrows.

For the payment of $12 for both eyebrows - and an additional $5 each for the lip and chin areas - customers walk away with just a touch of redness that will fade in about an hour for most and impeccably smooth skin.

Gupta doesn't advise customers to use threading to remove hair from larger areas, such as the legs or arms. That would be quite painful, she said.

The history of threading is unclear. Some people maintain that the ancient practice began in the Middle East, others, including Gupta, suggest that the Chinese brought it to India more than 2,000 years ago. It is generally thought that the practice was brought to the United States in the early 1990s.

Regardless of the origins of threading, the efficiency of the practice quickly converts customers from their tried-and-true tweezers or wax to tame bushy eyebrows and remove unwanted peach fuzz.

Most of Gupta's threading clients are in her chair for only a few minutes, but the salon's easygoing atmosphere - where a fresh brew of chai tea is made every day at 4 p.m. - is one where unexpected relationships sometimes develop.

They come from diverse backgrounds, wide-ranging walks of life and a broad spectrum of ages, to this oasis among the hustle and bustle of downtown Towson.

Over time, Usha's has evolved into a place where a young woman of 16, Jasmine, and her elder, Gupta, 61, can learn they have more in common than meets the eye.

Through conversations that have grown more intimate during biweekly visits - some longer than others, depending on whether mother and daughter are also having their hair styled - Jasmine and Usha have learned they share an unshakable belief that life has a way of working itself out.

Gupta says her grief remains as intense as it was a year ago when a massive heart attack snatched away her husband. It was July 26, 2006. She and Shashi had been married 45 years. He was 69.

"It was the biggest shock of my life." That's all she manages before tears puddle at the brims of her deep-set eyes.

Still, Gupta demonstrates that you keep living by keeping busy. You make the most of what remains. But she still can't bear to sleep in the room they shared.

"My parents wanted me to be a doctor," she said. "He was the only one who supported me doing this instead."

An abiding faith that everything will be all right is something to which Jasmine easily relates. Usha beams with pride at Jasmine's resilience as she encourages the teen to share her story, one with which Usha is well acquainted.

Born in Tennessee, Jasmine moved with her parents to their native Nigeria when she was 3. A few years later, her father lost his nursing job, and the family - including her sister Jessica, who is seven years her senior - was forced to live with friends.

Jasmine worried about being a burden to her struggling parents, but she was nonetheless heartbroken by the next hurdle - she and Jessica would have to decide whether to remain with their parents in Nigeria or return to family in the United States.

"I never doubted my parents. But you ask yourself, 'Why are your parents asking you, the 8-year-old, if you want to stay or go?'" Jasmine recalls. "I now realize they were teaching me to think on my own. I realize it was about my life. When you pick something, it doesn't always turn out right. But good always comes from something bad."

Though she and Jessica were treated well by relatives in Texas, Jasmine said it was difficult being separated from her parents until they rejoined the girls a few years later in the United States. No one loves you like your mother and father, she has learned.

"I think they wanted us as far away as possible, so we could have a better life," Jasmine says. "It shows me how much they cared."

On a recent day, after seeing countless customers, Gupta scans the shop and recalls the trying first year of business, especially the point at which some of her employees abruptly quit and she feared she would have to shutter the salon.

More than a decade later, she has moved to a larger space and new threading customers continue to arrive.

Gupta finally allows herself to have a seat as the salon's closing time nears. Her conversation easily turns to dreams of expanding the business. She'll open branches here and there. At 61, she has no thoughts of retirement.

"It was hard for me to build up a clientele," Gupta recalls, a smile spreading broadly across her face. "But when you struggle and you make it, you're really satisfied."

gina.davis@baltsun.com

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