Ziba Ahmadi was all set to try to break her own world record for threading the most pairs of eyebrows in an hour. However, when the time came to begin, there were only 40 people present at Ahmadi’s salon in Gainesville. She needed at least 91 pairs at the ready.
Her staff and clients sprang into action.
They texted their families and friends and posted on social media, beseeching one and all to hurry to Salon Ziba in the Thornebrook Village shopping center on Northwest 43rd Street.
At 5:45 p.m., Tuesday, 45 minutes after the planning starting time, there were still just about 70 people there. Everyone cheered as they voted to go ahead and start the timer.
As Ahmadi, 43, began threading one eyebrow after another after another, her supporters walked around the shopping complex to find anyone else who would participate. Soon, women and men were running out of the nearby gym and restaurants to help Ahmadi break the record.
“That was amazing,” she said afterward. “You could see ... who loves you.”
With onlookers nervous and thrilled amid the chaos, Ahmadi threaded 102 pairs of eyebrows within the allotted hour, breaking her official tally of 90she set at the salon on June 16. The prior record was 62 pairs and set by a woman named Pratiksha Bharati of India in 2018.
“The businesswoman takes pride in her work and has dedicated the past 10 years to achieve a great reputation for her salon,” it says on the Guinness World Records’ official webpage documenting Ahmadi’s first record.
Ahmadi insists she did 94 pairs in June. Her representatives sent just 90 before-and-after photos to Guinness World Records, however, so that’s what it went with, she said.
This time, she said: “I knew I was going to break the record – I could do more. I was going to go with (a) maximum number, so that no one ever can break my record.”
The salon owner said the world record idea came to her one night in December 2020, as a way to make people happy and to increase business after a tough year for her amid the pandemic.
But while she wanted to extend her record and put Gainesville in the Guinness book for a second time, Ahmadi wanted to use the event to demonstrate support for Ukraine as it struggles to maintain its independence against an invasion by Russia.
Ahmadi, who is Persian and originally from Iran, still recalls living through the Iran-Iraq conflict as a girl. After living in Turkey for about a year, she moved to the U.S. in 2009, and worked in The Oaks Mall as an eyebrow threader while as a nursing student at Santa Fe College. She lived briefly in Melbourne before relocating to Gainesville.
At the event, Ahmadi set up a table for which participants could donate to help Ukraine and/or have the Ukrainian flag painted on their faces.
Many of her clients at Salon Ziba are local college students. Erin Gonzalez, 18, a health science major from Gainesville, participated in both record-breaking events.
“It’s all really frizzy, but she’s a really hard worker, and she deserves all of us to be there for her – because it’s clear that she loves what she does,” Gonzalez said.
Lauren Pasqua, 26, a law school student, said she couldn’t say no when Ahmadi asked her to participate this time.
“I really liked how people rallied together at the end there,” Pasqua said. “It seemed like a lot of it was based on people just really caring about Ziba, which was really touching to see.”
Another client, Jade Oliviera, 22, an information systems major from Miami Beach, recalled first hearing from Ahmadi about the world record about a year ago.
“I thought she was just like playing,” Oliviera said. “She’s so ambitious and I can’t help but support it and admire it.”
Shaterica Jenkins is a friend of Ahmadi and a longtime customer. She loved seeing people waiting in a line extending out the door for their turn to have their eyebrows threaded.
“Outside of having my son, it’s probably the biggest thing I’ve ever been in,” Jenkins said.
