Being a redhead who used to be a blonde who has hair that grows incredibly fast whose eyebrows never quite caught up on the whole darkening process means that every five weeks, maintenance is needed.
I go, I get the roots taken care of and I get an hour-long flat ironing that I will indubitably attempt to stretch out for as long as is possible. That’s where the brows come in.
Five weeks is about as long as it takes me to go from hair-matching, smooth and sculpted to blonde, 80s Brooke Shields brows. With unibrow for good measure. I always go to the same place, a block from my apartment, and I drop $25 to get cleaned up and tinted. Today was the visit from hell, leading to the following helpful list to estheticians who might come across this.
- When I ask for a specific technician, tell me that you’ll do it and you’ll do it well and then try to colour-match my hair to a Redken book so that fear sets in immediately.
- Ensure that you have me lie down, against a sink. Which was just used and is covered in water. With a comfy towel behind me. That you took off the floor.
- Apply enough wax to the 1/4″ area above my eyes to take off a 70s bush, become confounded when the hair doesn’t rip off easily. Repeat. Several times.
- Drip said wax onto my eyes, nose ring and mouth. Then for extra measure, make sure you get some on the back of my head, too.
- Suggest removing said wax from said nose ring with alcohol.
- Make sure that you remove the hair in patches, paying absolutely no attention to the natural brow line or really whether you’re removing brow hair or, like, eyelashes.
- After I tell you that I have really sensitive skin and so need the tint specifically designed for brows, mix up some hair colour, willy-nilly, and attempt to convince me that ammonia-based cream won’t irritate my skin.
- After it starts burning and I’m feverishly fanning my left eyebrow, try to put some more on my right eyebrow.
- Suggest that a darkened room might make me more comfortable during the 20 minutes that you suggest the flames of hell sear my eyebrows off.
- When I again say that I need the authentic stuff, tell me about how your manager says that costs more, so you’re not supposed to use it. Even though you’re dangling it in front of my (now pink and puffy and fucking livid in your direction) eyebrows.
- Decide with a sigh to give me the good stuff, moving me into the afore-mentioned darkened room.
- Onto a table where some one’s just had their lady-bits decluttered. And you haven’t changed the cover. Suggest I lie down where unknown vagina just was.
- As you’re mixing up the good stuff, go to grab a tissue in the darkened room where you can’t see properly, thus knocking over my freshly-procured soy rooibos chai tea latté. On to my coat.
- Tell me that I don’t have to tip, to cover the cost of my turfed tea and dry cleaning. Since obviously, I was planning to at this point, anyway.
- Tint me, baby.
- Remove the tint. Decide it’s too light, even though I say it’s perfect. Tiny me, baby, redux.
- Remove the tint, which is now way darker than I wanted. Ensure you rub with the franticness of a 14 year old girl in the company of her first boyfriend as she’s trying to put out just enough and his parents could come upstairs at any point.
- After I tell you that the tea tree oil you’d like to slather my brows with will further inflame my face because I’m highly allergic to it, douse everything above my nose with it, letting me know that it will soothe my skin.
- Send me off into the world with brow bones that resemble Angelina Jolie’s lips, brows that look like they belong to a scary Sesame Street puppet, and $30 less dollars in my wallet because you’ve apparently raised your prices.
- Make sure you fucked up so badly in every brow-related spectrum such as tone, shape and symmetry, that I spend the next 45 minutes lying on my daughter’s toddler bed with a compact mirror cleaning up after your professional capabilities.
So, how was your Sunday?
