Day 91: Trust and Eyebrow Waxing

My (right) eyebrow, circa February 2011.
(A pro at Makeup and GO! in Brentwood, CA
did my eyeshadow/liner/faux lashes, which
explains why I'm looking so fly!)

Michael and I counted last night, and today is exactly 100 days until my wedding day.  Crazy, but cool!  Here's an update on my B.B.C.T.G. task list.

As a natural blonde, I'm pretty lucky in the eyebrow department.  In other words: I actually have eyebrows and they're just dark enough to show up on my face (so long as my complexion remains within the pallor-to-paler range). Yet, they aren't dark enough for it to be particularly noticeable if I haven't kept them perfectly groomed.  A bit of tweezing every few weeks and I'm in good shape.  As with my (recently) "good skin" - decent eyebrows are something I've taken for granted, and, therefore, don't think about very often.

And then I spent a few months without looking in the mirror... not "tweezing every few weeks" (ahem, AT ALL), and suddenly, running my fingers across my brow bone started to feel a bit like caressing Michael's stubbly jawline.  Yikes!  What used to feel like a beauty afterthought had started to become a source of paranoia!

Enter The Knot's Bridal Beauty Countdown to Gorgeous, which commands, "Ever consider having your eyebrows professionally shaped? Why not?  It's your wedding.  Now's the time to try it."  Indeed.  It is my wedding (or, at least, it will be in 100 days!).

And so I weighed my options with giddy-yet-nervous anticipation.  I was living in a new city.  I had never had my eyebrows waxed in this city.  This could be risky!  Oh!  Wait!  Aha!  YES YES YES!  6 years ago, when I lived in SF while working at GAP Corporate, I made at least one trip to the Benefit Brow Bar in Union Square.  I had no clear memory of how great or ungreat the experience had been, but I figured that I'd remember pretty vividly if it had been a disaster.  (Recall, my beautifying motto has recently become "good enough is good enough," and not-a-disaster-last-time counts as good enough!).

And so I traipsed to Union Square, future mother-in-law in tow.  I ventured into the Benefit Brow Bar at Macy's, which promised that I could "Get WOW Brows Now!" even though I had to wait 15 minutes before they could squeeze me in.  I settled into a high chair at the "bar" and awaited my fate.

A cute auburn haired and perfectly brow-groomed aesthetician introduced herself to me and started pulling a kit of goodies out from under the bar.  Tweezers, hot wax, tiny strips of fabric, makeup remover, some kind of soothing lotion, a few makeup compacts and.... A HANDHELD MIRROR!


I quickly blurted out, "Oh, sorry!  I can't look in the mirror.  It's the blog thing.  A project I'm doing... Sorry for the short notice!"  


She paused for a second, and then said "Wow!  That's cool!  You must really trust me, huh!"  


Huh.  Yeah.... Did I?  Could I?  Well, even if I didn't I wasn't about to tell her that!  So I responded by saying, "Yeah. Well, I know you guys usually do a great job.  Figured I would be in good hands!"  


She agreed with a vigorous nod, "Yeah, you CANNOT trust those dinky little no-name nail salons.  I would NEVER!  They don't even use different kinds of wax between your face and your hoo-ha!" 


(cue my nervous laughter and feigned horror).  "Oh really?  Wow.  That's, um, interesting.  Good to know!"  

And then I realized that she was done.  In the 2 minutes of this brief diatribe, my eyebrows had been cleansed, waxed, tweezed, soothed, and made-up with concealer ("to cover the redness") and brow pencil ("so they really POP!").  I imagined, hopefully, that the before vs. after difference was something like this:

 Running my fingers across my face, I saw the aesthetician flinch , perhaps frightened that I was smudging off the carefully applied concealer.  Whatever.  How else could I check? I could feel that (1) my brows were still there, and (2) that the skin below them was smooth and soft.   Sherry, my future-mother-in-law, glanced over and confirmed her approval.  Now vs. WOW, indeed!


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