Waxing, plucking, tweezing, microblading — some of us do a lot to make our eyebrows look a certain way these days.
But Bradford West Gwillimbury resident and makeup artist Sidika Mukhtar, who operates The Face Place, said she believes threading is the best way to achieve perfect arches.
Ever since she was a little girl, Mukhtar has been fascinated with hair and makeup and everything beauty related.
It wasn’t until later in life she followed her passion and started learning the art of threading and then enrolled at Canadian Beauty College to study makeup artistry and open her own beauty business.
"I think makeup just transforms your face and brings out your natural beauty and features even more,” she said.
Her specialty though, she said, is eyebrow threading.
Threading is a hair-removal technique in which a piece of string is manipulated onto the hair in order to remove it altogether or to give it a certain shape.
Threading is typically used for hair removal on the face, including eyebrows, upper lip, chin, sideburns and cheeks but can also be used to remove unwanted body hair.
“Threading is better for your skin because it doesn’t pull your skin, whereas waxing really pulls skin. With threading you get more precise lines and you get a sharper edge,” she said.
She said she really enjoys doing it and takes a lot of time making her clients’ eyebrows look perfect.
“When I do my threading it’s not a five-minute job. I take my time; it takes me a good 20 to 25 minutes,” she said. “I just enjoy it… It frames your face.”
A lot of people that come to The Face Place are looking to achieve a specific look, Mukhtar said, but that is not always quite easy to do.
“What makes a perfect brow is going to the same person and (having) patience,” she said.
Mukhtar said sometimes she will ask her clients to grow their eyebrows out for a while before she can master the desired look the client is going for, which can be high, angled, S-shape or curved arches.
“These people have been plucking or waxing for years, so it’s a process,” she said.
Her eyebrow-threading services are not just for women.
“Lately I’ve had a lot of men, too. Men are really getting into this now,” she said.
Mukhtar was born in Tanzania and moved to Canada when she was four years old. She and her husband moved to Bradford with their three sons, ages three, seven, and 12, in summer 2018 from Vaughan.
As a fairly new resident, she said it has been hard getting her business name out there and hopes she can build up her clientele.
“I used to do 25 clients a day. Now I am only doing, if I’m lucky, about five or six a week” she explained. “I think word-of-mouth (referrals) is more effective.”
Currently, The Face Place offers makeup and threading services and will soon be offering sugaring, another form of hair removal.
To get in touch with The Face Place, check out the Facebook page, Instagram account @zfaceplace, or call 416-275-0432.
