Weaving a tangled skein for threaders

POPULAR TECHNIQUE: Vinita Vineet removes facial hair from Kim Lightfoot at Vinita's Beauty & Threading Studio in Cerritos. ROSE PALMISANO, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER Hair threading History: The origin of threading is hazy, though its practitioners say it has been performed for centuries. It is popular in the Middle East and India, where the art has been passed down from mother to daughter for generations. Use: For removing unwanted hair on brows, cheeks, lip and chin. Appeal: Practitioners say it is quick, relatively painless and as effective as other forms of hair removal such as waxing and plucking. Cost: About $6 for eyebrows, compared with as much as $20 for waxing.

SACRAMENTO - When Vinita Vineet came to the United States from India, she dreamed of opening a salon where customers could have their eyebrows sculpted with cotton thread.

But the doors to Vinita's Beauty & Threading Studio in Artesia had been open barely a year when, in 2001, the state slapped her with two $500 fines.

The experience of hair-threaders such as Vineet launched what would become a four-year struggle between practitioners of an ancient beauty technique taking hold in the U.S. and a state licensing bureaucracy whose leader acknowledges it is slow to adapt.

And it's a process that has led one Orange Country legislator to author three bills in a merry-go-round of fines, legislation and, well, splitting hairs.

Threading involves wrapping unwanted eyebrow hairs with a twisted thread, then pulling them out by the follicle.

It has been practiced in Southern California for at least 20 years. But only within the past decade has it blossomed in popularity. It has been featured in such fashion magazines as Vogue, and studios such as Ziba Beauty in Artesia have threaded the likes of Madonna and Jennifer Aniston.

Vineet, who now owns three threading salons in Orange County and Westwood, estimates one of her salons can serve anywhere from 30 customers on slow days to 150 on weekends. She's planning on opening a fourth salon in Irvine to handle demand.

But things were not always so smooth for threaders. Up until three years ago, the state was fining them for threading without a license.

The tricky thing is that California doesn't issue a license for threading because it isn't part of the state-mandated cosmetology curriculum at beauty schools.

"How would they expect us to get a license for it?" Vineet asked in exasperation.

The state Board of Barbering and Cosmetology doesn't track the number of citations it has issued for threading. But Assemblyman Rudy Bermúdez, D-Norwalk – whose district includes the portion of Artesia called "Little India" – estimated all of the owners of threading salons in his area, estimated at nearly 50, have complained of being fined.

Bermúdez helped solve the original problem that threaders faced by writing a bill in 2003 that exempted studios from being fined for threading.

But since then, hair threaders have been fined for occasionally using scissors to snip hairs that defy threading – which can get them in trouble for the unlicensed use of scissors.

So for the second year in a row, Bermúdez has written a bill that redefines threading to include the "incidental trimming of eyebrow hair."

The Legislature passed a similar bill last year, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it, saying he would have signed it were it not for a clause about the licensure process. Bermúdez's bill this year omits that language.

Besides the spat over licenses, there is little controversy over threading. It has no serious side effects, and the state has received a minimal number of consumer complaints.

The Professional Beauty Federation of California opposes the Bermúdez bill because it would allow threaders to use scissors without a license.

But it's not opposed to threading in principle and acknowledges the bill is likely to pass.

Fred Jones, a lobbyist for the federation, said the state could solve the threading issue more quickly if it would cede greater control over cosmetology curriculum to the beauty schools. "If there is a marketing demand for a procedure, you shouldn't have to go through such rigorous procedure to change the curriculum," he said.

The mandatory beauty school curriculum has not been changed since 1998-99. Kristy Underwood, the cosmetology board's executive director, acknowledges it should have been updated earlier.

The board is reviewing its curriculum now, but it still might not incorporate threading into future licenses because it is uncertain how much demand there is for threading outside of Southern California.

"We have 250,000 cosmetologists in California," Underwood said. "How many of them are threading?"

For Varinder Mehta, whose wife, Roma, owns Roma's Beauty Parlor in Artesia, the fuss over threading seems overblown.

All Indian threaders want is to practice something they've already been doing for centuries, he said. "I don't see what the dispute is."