The BBL (Brazilian butt lift) might be one of the fastest-growing plastic surgery procedures in the U.S. right now, but the Brazilian bikini wax is still the most popular of all beauty treatment trends imported from the tropical country.
The waxing style, distinguished by the hair removal of the bikini line at the sides, down the middle and around the back, reached Hollywood-fame status when Carrie Bradshaw accidentally got a Brazilian wax on an episode of “Sex and the City” season 3 in 2000. “She took everything I’ve got,” Sarah Jessica Parker’s character described. The responsibility for making Bradshaw feel like “one of those freaking hairless dogs,” as she illustrated on the show, lies with seven immigrant sisters from Brazil, the J. Sisters.
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“We were [basically] born in a salon in Brazil. The only thing we knew when we moved here was working in a salon,” Jonice Padilha, the youngest sister to Jocely, Janea, Joyce, Juracy, Jussara and Judseia, told WWD.
Jonice and her sisters flocked from Vitoria — the capital of Espirito Santo, Brazil — to New York in the ’80s and started working in different salons around the city. In 1987, they teamed up to open their own business around 57th Street and Fifth Avenue. “We had to figure out what we had in beauty to introduce to clients,” she explained. The Brazilian manicure became their first hit service. “At that time, there was no requirement of license [for manicure], so that was easy. We didn’t have enough English to go and take a license for something else,” Jonice said.
In 1990, Janea surprised Jonice with an idea: offer a full wax service inspired by their motherland to one of their clients. In Brazil, thong-style bikinis became popular during the ’80s, exposing more skin area and creating a need for an audacious type of hair removal. Jonice claims she was insecure when she first heard her sister’s idea, but the experiment succeeded.
The first client loved the smooth results and told a friend about it, who then told someone else, whose boyfriend told somebody else, casually starting a word-of-mouth chain. “It went everywhere. We were surprised like everyone else that it went so fast. You know, like a disease, everywhere,” she recalled.
Then the celebrities came. Roberta Flack was her first famous client, followed by the late Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Marci Klein, who started spreading the word among their celebrity friends. The Brazilian wax craze, however, exploded after Gwyneth Paltrow discovered the technique.
“[Paltrow] gave us a photo and wrote, ‘Thanks, J. Sisters, you changed my life,’ and that went everywhere. People were curious to see why that changed her life. So they all came,” Jonice said, referring to supermodels and A-listers.
One of Jonice’s favorite clients is Naomi Campbell. The wax and nail expert said she’s been working with the supermodel “for over 25 years” and charges her an average of $700 for home appointments.
In 2016, the J. Sisters salon closed its doors due to mismanagement, according to Jonice. The sisters professionally split up but kept a good family relationship. Currently, Jonice works with her nieces at the Federico Salon & Spa, located a few steps away from The Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, where she still welcomes a roster of celebrity clients — Jonice dropped names including Lupita Nyong’o, Mary J Blige, Hilary Swank, Uma Thurman and Pat McGrath.
Regarding Brazilian wax’s nemesis, laser hair removal, Jonice believes the newcomer method has much to be improved before taking the Brazilian wax out of the market. At least on TikTok, she has a point — #brazilianwax has generated over 2.5 billion views so far against 2 billion views from #laserhairremoval. With summer approaching, the searches for the waxing style on Google are also on the rise.
Jonice credits the three-decades-long success of the Brazilian wax to what she calls the “Brazilian way” of doing things. “We have the encouragement to show them instead of selling to them,” she explained. The beauty expert also recognizes that the stereotype of the sexy Brazilian woman helped their business. “Everybody always thinks that Brazilians are sexy, and this and that. So it’s kind of having a little piece of that in me, like a little bit of Brazilian in me.”