Thuy Phan/Nguoi Viet
SANTA ANA, Calif. – Every three to four weeks, Tania Cueva gets her sweet dose of sugar– but not in the way you think. She comes to Downtown Sugar, a salon located in Santa Ana for a Brazilian. But, it’s not a traditional wax that most people think of, with hot melted wax, strips of cloth and a painful flick. Instead, it’s a method called sugaring, and “sugarists” as they call themselves, use a room temperature paste to remove the unwanted hairs.
Downtown Sugar salon owner, Ana Serrato, won “Best Sugaring Salon” from OC Weekly magazine in 2014 & 2015. (Photo: Thuy Phan/Nguoi Viet)
“I’ve had my eyebrows waxed and it’s painful,” Cuevea, 39, a resident of Santa Ana said. “I’ve been sugaring for over a year and will never go back to waxing.”
Serrato, who owns Downtown Sugar, located at 218 W 3rd St. in Santa Ana, said she began offering this service years ago and since then, it has gained a steady following.
“I thought it was just going to be a fad but once I took the class and became certified, I knew it wasn’t going anywhere,” said Serrato, 41, who opened the salon 7 years ago. “Hair growth is a lot slower, it lasts longer, just the overall look and feel of the skin after sugaring is so different from waxing. The skin isn’t red, it looks like fresh new skin, not irritated.”
Sugarists apply sugar paste to the area and use a flicking motion to remove the hair. (Photo: Thuy Phan/Nguoi Viet)
Sugaring is still not as popular or as mainstream as wax, but the method goes back to an old Egyptian method where women would make sugar paste by adding lemon sugar and water together to form a paste, Serrato said.
“They would do it at home and moms, daughters and grandmothers would sugar each other. It didn’t become popular here until about 15-20 years ago.”
The paste, which doesn’t have to be hot to be applied to the skin, offers a gentler alternative to waxing with less waste.
“To apply it, and remove it in a flicking motion, we wear gloves and when we’re done, we just remove it, take the gloves off and throw the sugar away,” Serrato said. “That’s why its’ more eco-friendly because there’s no sticks, and strips and filling our trash can with all that stuff. Its just sugar which is biodegradable, and the only waste is the glove.”
The sugar paste is made from lemon, sugar and water and is used at room temperature. (Photo: Thuy Phan/Nguoi Viet)
The cost for sugaring is more expensive than waxing but customers are happy to pay for the organic solution. A Brazilian at Downtown Sugar is listed at $65 for first-timers, whereas an average price for conventional wax would be $40.
“It’s just a few more dollars, but it feels really natural,” Cuvea said.
Unlike waxers, who learn the method in beauty school but do not have to be certified, sugarists must pass a certification course that lasts two days before sugar distributors sell to them. Serrato said it takes roughly six months of sugaring large areas to really get comfortable enough to do more detailed parts of the body, such as the eyebrows. Serrato is so invested in sugaring, that she became a trainer in order to help others perfect their technique.
“Our industry is only as good as we are,” Serrato said. If we’re not teaching others to be good, our industry will be stagnant, and to me that’s death to sugaring. I’d rather see a sugaring place on every corner than see a waxing place, so if I can help that in a little bit, we’re all winning.”
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