Street Pedicure!

When Terry and I visited Taipei about 5 years ago, I recall touring with my mother-in-law and watching ladies on the side of one street sit on plastic stools underneath colorful umbrellas waiting to be ‘threaded’. Threading is an alternative to facial waxing. It involves taking an ordinary piece of thread and dividing it into 3 parts. Each hand holds one part, and one part stays in the mouth. Somehow the threads cross, creating a scissor-like effect, scraping across the skin and pulling out the hair by the follicle.

Curious as to why the clients’ faces were white, I realized that skillful older ladies would put talcum powder on their customers’ faces to determine which parts of the face had yet to be threaded. Each customer would have her hair pulled back in a hair-band and a generous portion of talcum powder would then be applied to her (or his…yes, the men here are REALLY into their hair and facial care!!) face.

Along side of each of these ladies were various other vendors hawking anything from manicures/pedicures to holistic massage (which looks a lot like beating-up their customers as I’ve seen one too many leave bruised). The site was a very curious one; however, I realized that the Taiwanese must be onto something when I saw threading become available in Stoneridge Mall back in Pleasanton in the year 2009 or so.

Since my arrival, it has been a treat to have someone paint my toes. Services in Taipei are typically about 30% less expensive than in the USA; however, most licensed pedicure/manicure women I’ve seen are priced comparable to the USA. Always on the hunt for a bargain, I’ve always watched the people on the street; however, I’ve never had the courage to try out the street vendors, as I’ve been a bit nervous about sanitation (think staff infection!!!!!).

One Saturday night, I had a gift of being alone for a whole evening. Both girls were at an all-day play date, and Terry had to leave early for a Chinese New Year party (yup…work parties I’m finding do NOT include spouses…bizaare to me, but typical). Knowing that the paint from my 2-month-old pedicure was slowly eroding, I decided to try my luck at the street vendors. I took the necessary precautions and ensured that my legs were NOT recently shaved and I had no open wounds, so as to hopefully keep any ‘can’t see ‘ums’ at bay :).

Not being able to read enough to figure out who was a threader and who provided pedicure/manicure services, I sought out anyone who had a bowl of water and a basket of nail polish. My methodology paid off and I found a vendor who was in between clients. Of course, trying to communicate what I wanted was a bit tricky, but before he left, Terry gave me the words for ‘paint nails’, and with the help of body language, she knew what I wanted and told me the price. We were all set to begin!

She used a plastic bowl, which she first scraped with some sort of steel wool and hot water as I sat down. Once cleaned, she had 2 thermos’ of hot water which she placed into the bowl, about ½ way full. She asked me to put my feet in, but not my whole feet…just the tips of my feet. While my feet were soaking, she took out her bag of instruments and proceeded to use some cotton balls soaked with some sort of rubbing alcohol (or nail polish remover…I couldn’t figure out which) to clean them off. Either way, it smelled strong enough to kill whatever ‘can’t see ‘ums’ which may have been hiding in her instruments.

After a bit of a soak, she performed all the standard pedicure grooming steps (cutting my cuticles, shaping my nails…even taking care of a bit of an in-grown toe nail which had been bothering me for weeks!). While I confess that her selection of colors and brands left MUCH to be desired, I settled on a color which was ‘good enough’ (which sums up most everything here in Taipei). After only about 20-30 minutes, my toes were freshly manicured and painted. All of this for a whopping $8USD equivalent!!! Granted, there was no foot massage or any fancy trimmings, but all I was really after was some grooming and a fresh coat of paint.

The most amazing thing to me was that there on the street, this woman had everything she needed. She strategically placed herself by a grate so as to effectively dump out the water after each customer. She had the appropriate cleaning materials needed to ensure a somewhat clean/sterile environment for her customers. She had large plastic chairs for customers to sit upon and small plastic chairs for their feet. There were about 3-4 thermos’ which had enough hot water to make things comfortable. On a hip pack, she had a change purse. In a nice, clean case she carried a large assortment of pedicure grooming instruments which, as I mentioned above, she expertly cleaned in front of each client (well done on her part to provide comfort to her customers that her station is kept tidy and clean).

While this process is definitely different and has an intimidating appearance, she provided exactly what I wanted for a great price. To me, this is a great entrepreneurial experience. Funny enough…some of the women have such a distinct appearance that I am POSITIVE that a few of them are the very same ones I saw when we came here 5 years ago.

I have not yet tried threading as I fear that once my whole face is threaded, the maintenance becomes much more demanding and I know I don’t want to take THAT much time! Still, there is quite a market for it as it is not uncommon for 2-3 customers to wait at one station for their favorite threader. There is one station which doesn’t seem to get nearly as much traffic….that’s the holistic massage guy. Who wants to PAY to get beat up??!!! All in all, an experience worth sharing to be sure!