Grace in the Details: How Gratitude Shaped My Journey from Kathmandu to Boston
- Nov 13
- 2 min read
By Akriti Shrestha Maes
I'm Akriti Shrestha Maes, founder of Eye Adore Threading. Our three Boston locations in South End, Beacon Hill, and Arlington earned Best of Boston honors for brow shaping in 2022 and 2023. But those accolades aren't what I'm most proud of.
When I packed my life in Kathmandu to study business in America, I brought something precious: the eyebrow threading technique my grandmother taught me as a teenager. That skill, often dismissed as outdated, became my bridge between worlds. In 2017, I started with one chair and a handful of clients who believed in me. I made myself a promise: if this worked, I'd pull other women up with me.
The Currency of Connection
Seven years later, I've trained over forty women, most of them immigrants navigating the same uncertain waters I once did. We've transformed threading from something people saw as quaint into a respected craft that honors our heritage while meeting modern luxury standards.
Every morning before we open, I write three thank you notes to clients, team members, or mentors who've shaped my path. My staff started noticing, then mimicking. Now gratitude ripples through our salons like muscle memory. It shows up in how my team welcomes a nervous first timer, how they cheer each other through hectic Saturdays, how they turn their accents and cultural knowledge into assets rather than obstacles.
Building Through Mentorship
Each new hire gets six months of mentorship that goes beyond threading technique. We talk pricing strategies, client psychology, and dreams, whether that's growing within Eye Adore or eventually opening their own studio. Real gratitude means teaching someone everything you know, not hoarding knowledge out of fear.
One stylist told me my handwritten thank you was the first time any boss had acknowledged her in a decade. Another started as an assistant and now manages Beacon Hill, supporting her kids as a single mom.
A third said hearing "your cultural background is your competitive edge" changed everything about how she saw herself. These moments remind me why gratitude isn't just nice. It's transformative.
The Business of Giving Back
The women in my Kathmandu neighborhood taught me threading for free; passing it forward in Boston keeps that generosity alive.
Since making gratitude our north star, client retention hit seventy eight percent. Five women advanced into leadership. Gratitude builds the kind of loyalty you can't buy. It has to be cultivated, person by person, thank you by thank you.
Threading Forward
People sometimes think gratitude makes you soft. They're wrong. It takes strength to acknowledge others, to share credit, to teach someone your secrets. For immigrant women building businesses, gratitude becomes strategy. It's how we create sustainable companies that don't just survive but lift entire communities.
This isn't really about threading eyebrows. It's about threading cultures together, about proving that the skills and values we bring from home aren't baggage. They're gifts. Every woman I mentor, every note I write, every client who leaves feeling seen represents gratitude in action.
The thread my grandmother placed in my hands connects Kathmandu to Boston, connects forty women to new futures, connects tradition to innovation. That's the real luxury we're selling.
Akriti Shrestha Maes
Founder and CEO, Eye Adore Threading
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