Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Grooming pains

I didn't get the worst eyebrow wax today. That would imply something catastrophic, like the time my friend's mom went to the beauty school and actually came home without one of her brows.

(And that is so not an urban myth. It did happen to my friend/cousin's mother. I swear.)

I stopped into my usual brow place at the mall, but it was not at my usual time. The esthetician I usually see is in her late thirties or so, and we always talk about our kids. Or I see a younger blonde woman who doesn't really talk at all (which I like). They both do a great job.

This woman looked like she might be trouble from the moment she walked into the waiting area. She was older than the others, mid forties maybe, and she had terrible hair. Well, not terrible mullet hair or anything like that, but just blah, stringy, bad hair. At a salon/spa! I know it's in the mall, but everyone else there is quite stylish.

Anyway, I figured that they all must be held to the same standards, so I followed her into the procedure room.

I was mistaken.

She didn't ask me anything about what I usually do with my brows. And after she had pulled one of the wax strips off, she started digging around in my eyebrow. Not with tweezers or a little brush, just digging. I must have made a perplexed face because she finally explained:

"I got some wax where I don't want it to go. So I'm just trying to get it out."

When I looked in the mirror, my brows were indeed cleared of (most of) the stray overgrowth, but they hadn't been given any shape at all.

I didn't speak up, not for my usual reason (I'm a baby) but because I didn't want her going near my face again with her errant wax and sloppy fingers.

My advice: avoid mall spa services outside of peak hours. You don't know who they will trust with a pair of tweezers.

No comments: