Brow Bar

Some of the things I have embarked upon as part of my get-well-soon are the trusty old, "do something that scares you" things that get trotted out by the lifestyle magazines fairly frequently. They suggest that little gem so often because it's absolutely true. So some of my scare things have been to do with my face...

...Despite being an incredibly vain creature (or perhaps because of being one) I have never had a facial in my life. Or had my eyebrows plucked, waxed or threaded by a professional. I pluck my eyebrows myself, and only in the most frugal of ways... I have an insane fear that should I ever have a facial or have my eyebrows waxed, that I will walk out of the salon blissfully unaware of the fact that my face is bright red and terrifying to puppies and children (a la Samantha in that episode of SATC), or that something will go terribly wrong and the real face hiding under my current face will be revealed (and that it won't be pretty). Insane!


So in keeping with including a bit of fear in my life, tomorrow night I will have the first facial of my life (I am so so scared). A few weeks ago, I had my eyebrows threaded.

Unless you've been living under some kind of girl's magazine rock, you would know what threading is. Threading is the ancient Indian artform using cotton thread to remove facial hair, and which hit the beauty world by storm a few years ago. So I decided to give it a go... Again. Terrified. What if I became one of those girls with the way-too-skinny sets of eyebrows? Or what if the eyebrows become too short or too far apart? So I set strict parameters: keep within the line of my brows, don't go bananas, and please have respect for the fact this is the first time anyone has ever touched my face in the beauty sense and I'm shitting bricks right now!


My little Indian (sooo patronising. I could go to PC jail for that!) did an amazing job. It weirdly looked like she was flossing my eyebrows, and it made a funny kind of razoring sound, and it actually hardly hurt (yes, obviously I felt something, but it wasn't murderous). And my eyebrows look normal. She cleared up that pesky bit between the brows, removed some of the added extras above the brow line (I panicked when she did that), and ensured the ends came to a lovely fine point - without being too fine, of course. I was so happy with what she'd done, I said - do my upper lip! I don't know why! But I LOVE it. I am actually more obsessed with the fantastic job on the upper lip than on the eyebrows. We did get a little over excited and discussed doing the entire face (yes, people do it - and I honestly think it would be worth the time and money), but ... I had to draw the line. Both monetarily and fear-factor-ish. And yeah... I think the whole face would hurt a little. The upper lip was sort of uncomfortable in bits, but ultimately well worth the results.


So may I suggest you try threading. In your lunch hour even: the redness disappears after 1 hour (and that's on my overly sensitive, cry-baby skin!).

I had mine done at the fabulous Appruzzese Hair & Body salon in Paddington, Brisbane. Phone 3511 7777 if you're in the area. There was a half price special on when I went, so ask for a favour...