Narsih is More Than a Waxing Salon, It's a Community

I was eating a portion of greasy bihun goreng in the small waiting room of Narsih—a waxing salon with a following that borders on fanatical among certain women—when I started to notice how… religious everyone else was. The 50-year-old woman sitting next to me was quietly reciting verses from the Quran off her phone, her voice rising and falling in a graceful melody. Other verses hung on the wall, the ayat al-Kursi (the Throne verse) written out in fancy calligraphy. At least three other Islamic verses adorned the waiting room's walls.

It wasn't exactly what I expected, but, to be honest, little about this waxing and eyebrow shop was exactly what I imagined. Narsih is a South Jakarta institution, a near-legendary waxing house that is spoken about with glee in WhatsApp groups across the city. The diversity of its clientele is a testament to its popularity. It's a place where Hermès bags sit next to canvas totes, where Tod's loafers tap their soles next to Swallows flip-flops.

Part of the draw is Narsih's affordable prices. Where else can you get a Brazilian for Rp 45,000 ($3.37 USD) and eyebrow threading for Rp 35,000 ($2.62 USD)? But there's more to it than that. Narsih is a place for mothers to bond with their daughters. It's a place where old friends can catch up, or customers can spill their guts to the staff.

"Half of my high school class goes to Narsih," said Eugenia Vanya, a 20-year-old university student. "In my university, I know five to ten people who are also regulars here."

Vanya said that she has struck up a friendship with her therapist, a woman named Vera who offers a sympathetic ear alongside heaping slathers of hot sugar wax.

"Vera is a very good listener," she said. "Sometimes we can't help but curhat [pour out feelings]."

Sari, another regular, told me she feels at home among the women of Narsih.

"Whenever I get my Brazilian wax a few weeks past my regular appointment, my therapist shouts, 'Oh God, what a forest we have down here!'" Sari said with a chuckle. "She's hilarious."

After an hour of waiting, a therapist calls my number (#12) and I'm led into a small booth. On the way, I counted seven other booths in the room, each no more than 4-square-meters big. Each was separated by a thin curtain. I changed out of my clothes and into the cotton gown the waxing house uses for all its customers. A steel bowl of homemade sugar wax was heating up on a small electric stove. Next to it was something I didn't expect to see: a butter knife.

So you lay there in this tiny booth while a woman spreads hot sugar on your body like she's buttering a piece of toast. It was a bit weird, but whatever.

My therapist explained to me that Narsih actually opened back in 2000, when it was in a different house in the same neighborhood. It was one of the first places to offer waxing in Jakarta—a fact that helped cement its early popularity.

She works eight hours a day, on rotation with seven other women—two of whom work shifts in the kitchen to keep the waiting room fed. Narsih offers all the standard salon treatments, body hair bleaching, and manicures, but it's their Brazilians and eyebrow threading that keep customers coming back.

In 15 minutes, my session was over. The butter knife felt pretty strange, and the whole thing was as painful as usual. But Narsih isn't about high-tech techniques or high-end décor. It's a club, an underground society of women bound together by the skills, and friendship, of the eight therapists/ part-time cooks.