Blink

I was doing my monthly indepth perusal of fashion magazine Glamour (I pay £10 for a year's subscription ok, that makes it less than £1 for each copy; I think I can afford that and a girl's gotta keep updated with the fashion industry) and came across Blink Eyebrow Bar - a one stop joint for instant eyebrow shaping using the ancient Indian art of threading.
What a mouthful.

So I click onto the website that actually reads 'Pioneerof walk-in brow bars and experts in eyebrow shaping using the ancient art of threading' and read the whole story of how this great bit of business venture took off.

Of course, my time would much better be spent clicking on bmj.com but the heart does not always follow the mind.

Anyway.
I like eyebrow threading.
It's clean and fast and yes, I agree it's one of the best ways to trim and shape your eyebrows. So I was a bit excited that this is an easily accessible service for me now and click onto the different links available to read about it. However, all hope fades when I came across:


Eyebrow threading : £17.

WTF.

I pay RM5 in KL.

I know I know, one cannot compare this country to Malaysia whose GDP is 100 times less or something like that. But still.
Do you know how long eyebrow threading takes?

10 minutes. Or 5, if you have already done it before so all they gotta do is just trim the excess.

OMG.
£17.
Let's take it dollar to dollar.
RM17. STILL. Vs RM 5.

Then I click onto more of the website and slowly the it dawned on my WHY £17.

No. 1You get served in a place that looks like this.
State-of-the-art salon , colour coordinated with a fancy dressing top mirror for your use at any minute while you comment, ooh and aah over each hair that is plucked out.
My eyebrow threading bar in KL is more like a hospital ward with cheap curtains drawn across for privacy in a 4 bed bay area cramped into a tiny room.
My mirror, sorry, OUR mirror hangs on a wall at the far end of the wall, that you can probably only use once you get your brows done.
Well, you also have the hand held ones that you have to ask for and not readily fed to you.

No.2
Their locations include spots in Harvey Nicols and Selfridges&Co. in London.

-_-

That's like telling me you have an outlet in KLCC or The Gardens in Midvalley; and still that's not as posh.

My eyebrow 'bar' is the back room of a clothes outlet that's a bit shady, owned by some Indian businessman/woman. The only thing posh about it is that it's in Bangsar.
Hah.
Eat that.

No. 3
You can book an appointment online.
Now.
That's cool.
I just turn up at mine at Bangsar and wait for 1 hour before I get my turn.

No. 4
Their session takes 15 minutes.
Of course, they'll sit you down, introduce themselves, give you a once over with your eye shape and nose and crap like that and in the whole process tell you the story of their life.

In Bangsar, I lie down and they get onto the job pronto. That's not overtly bad customer service though, if I want to know what eyebrow shape is good for me they can answer my questions, if I want it thin or thick they will do it and at intervals let me check my reflection.

No, I wouldn't know their name or how many oceans they had to swim through to get to London, sorry KL.
I swam through the South China Sea meself.

No. 5
Blink sells brow products.
Now, like all business's go, nothing rakes in the cash better than the raw ka-ching you get from selling solid consumer products.
Blink knows it only too well.
They go ahead and sell stuff like sandalwood oil for the brows, tamer (?_?), eyebrow oil... and a gazillion of other things for brow health and nourishment.

Isn't the whole idea of threading is to get the brow in shape so it looks gorgeous?
How would oil and stuff and a tamer(!) make it look better?
It looks bad only when it gets OUT OF SHAPE, so, go back and thread it!

Oh sorry, my bad.
£17.
FFS.

No. 6
Blink has a website.
That's top of the league in the marketing sense for you. Accessible anywhere and everywhere with loads of information on it for your own perusal.
I like it.
My brow bar - invisible if not personally taken there by someone who has been there.

Overall, I am rather impressed by this brainchild of the founder Vanita Parti who discovered this niche in the market that can exclusively be supported by the power earners of this country. Combined with the mysterious and profound sounding 'ancient art of threading' - Winner.

However, KL is far away from a beauty salon that offers instant eyebrow threading for RM 17 when you can really just get it for RM5.

Why? Because breaking it down to the raw basic of it all, the only tools used in threading is after all - threads.