I started doing bikini waxes 45 years ago in Romania. I learned from my grandmother and practiced on friends. When I was 20, I went to beauty school, where they taught us how to wax a client.
I moved to New York City in 1987 and worked at a hair salon, then at Kimara Ahnert on the Upper East Side. I opened my own salon, Maris Dusan, on Park Avenue 15 years ago. At its peak, before the pandemic, I had 30 people on the wait list every day.
When I started in New York, people weren’t doing a lot of bikini waxing. Then the J. Sisters appeared with the Brazilian bikini wax, and it took off.
I want to make people comfortable. I start by making eye contact and asking if they want me to take off all the hair or leave a landing strip or a triangle. Sometimes they’ll ask, Do I have to take off my underwear? But you really can’t do a bikini wax on someone who’s wearing their underwear. Sometimes I tell them, Well, I take my underwear off every day, just to make them laugh.
Some people, the classic, proper women, can be embarrassed. So I ask them about their kids, their family, and then they smooth out. It’s like a psychology session.
When I’m working, I go into a different zone. To calm people down, sometimes I pray to myself when I’m doing the treatment, and people can feel that energy. But really, I’m not looking at their vagina. I’m thinking about what to make for dinner. Sometimes they’ll say, What’s wrong? You look like you’re really concentrating. And I tell them I’m trying to decide whether to make chicken or beef tonight.
I start by buzzing off their hair if it’s long. Then I wax in small patches, which is less painful and doesn’t break the hair the way big strips of wax do. I also know how to hold the skin taut, so it doesn’t hurt so much.
Everyone has a different pain threshold. If they’re really sensitive, I’ll tell them to take a Tylenol or Advil before they come.
I’ve done pregnant women. I’ve had clients who come in, get waxed, and have the baby eight hours later. Clients will bring in their daughters for their first bikini wax. I won’t give them a Brazilian until they’re at least 16, and then they have to have their mother’s approval.
Most women—I’d say 80 percent—get everything removed. The rest get a landing strip. I used to do men but, other than a couple of clients’ husbands, I don’t anymore. You never know who’s going to be crazy.
I’m fast. I can do a full bikini wax in seven to ten minutes, and they’re out the door.
Sometimes clients will talk about their boyfriends, their husbands, their dates, their divorces. Sometimes they’re crying, and not from the wax. I’ll give them advice if they want it.—As told to Linda Wells
Lidia Tivichi is the owner of Maris Dusan, a salon in New York, where she specializes in bikini waxes and facials
