I Cried a Little Over My Eyebrows in Murray Hill (And Somehow It Made Me a Better Person)
When I first moved to New York, I did what any sensible desi woman would do: I refused to find a new threading place and just... waited. Every trip back home to Atlanta became a covert eyebrow operation. Land, hug family, get threaded, repeat. This is a completely normal and not at all excessive way to handle personal grooming, and I will not be taking questions.
Eventually, flying home every six weeks to maintain my eyebrows stopped feeling sustainable, even to me. This was back in the era when "checking reviews" meant asking your one desi coworker if they'd heard of a place, not scrolling through a star rating, so my due diligence process was, generously, vibes-based. I found a spot above an Indian grocery store in Murray Hill, reasoned that any neighborhood with that much desi grocery real estate had to have a decent threading place hiding somewhere in it, and decided that was good enough science for me.
I climbed the stairs with my boyfriend in tow for moral support, and a young Nepali woman greeted us warmly. Immediately, I relaxed. The room looked exactly like the places back home: the same slightly-too-saturated wall color, the same eyebrow chair that wobbles just enough to make you grip the armrests like you're on a rollercoaster, torn threads scattered on the floor like confetti from a party nobody remembers agreeing to, a small TV mounted near the ceiling playing a Hindi movie at a volume just loud enough to be a third participant in the conversation. I felt nervous and completely at home, simultaneously, which is a very specific desi-diaspora feeling I don't think has an English word yet.
I told her, clearly, "just clean it up." Just clean it up is a sacred incantation. Just clean it up means do not touch the shape, do not thin anything, do not get creative. I said the words. She heard different words, apparently, because by the time I sat up, my eyebrows had been thinned into a shape I did not consent to, and, this is the part that still lives in my nervous system, she'd pulled a bit of skin and I was bleeding. A little. But bleeding is bleeding. She looked at her work with the quiet pride of an artist finishing a masterpiece. I looked at the mirror with the quiet devastation of someone watching a masterpiece happen to her own face.
I said nothing. I paid my $6. I tipped her. I left, and my boyfriend, bless him, spent the entire subway ride home insisting they looked totally fine, which was a kind and complete lie, and I loved him for it anyway. I didn't touch another pair of tweezers or let anyone near my eyebrows for the better part of a year. I grew out a full, unapologetic bush and made my peace with it.
Here are the places I actually trust now, found the slow, humiliating way, so you don't have to.
The first place I really let myself trust again was Namaste Brows Beauty Bar on the Lower East Side.
Nearly 1,400 reviews and still sitting at a perfect 5 stars, which for a threading spot at that volume is basically unheard of. People fly in from out of state and ask for specific technicians by name, the way you'd request a favorite hairdresser back home. I go here when I want zero surprises.
When I want something quieter and more under-the-radar, I go to Rubina's Threading Spa in Downtown Brooklyn.
It's small, it's a little hidden, and the reviews describe exactly the gentle, careful touch I wish I'd had that first time. If you have sensitive skin, this is the one.
In Bed-Stuy, there's Silk Brows Threading Salon, sitting close to a perfect 5 stars across 160 reviews.
Multiple people mention being loyal regulars for over a year straight, which, if you've read this far, you already know is the single highest compliment I'm capable of giving anyone holding thread near my face.
And on the rare occasion I'm back in Murray Hill, Manhattan, a different Murray Hill, I promise, I go to Sona Eyebrow Threading Art & Beauty Boutique.
More than one reviewer calls her an artist, and I've seen people specifically follow her to a new location years later because they simply never found anyone better. I believe them.
Four places, four very different vibes, zero regrets. Go forth and thread responsibly.