Monday, August 11, 2008

Eyebrow Maintenance

Ever since I was 12 or 13 years old.... I have been getting my eyebrows waxed. Whenever I turned that age when it was necessary to keep my brows nicely shaped, my mom tried to tweeze my brows and I just about lost my marbles.

I find tweezing SO incredibly painful. Red heads have really sensitive skin and the area around my eyebrows is even more delicate. I cried everytime my mom would try to tweeze so eventually we found that waxing worked better for me. They could do more at one time and it didn't last as long.

So for the past 13 years or so... I get my brows waxed monthly. And everytime, I tell the lady "Could you please tweeze as little as possible? Possibly not at all? I really hate it and it hurts me really badly. No tweezers. Use as much wax as needed, but no tweezers". Some of the ladies are absolute angels and they don't tweeze me at all. Some ladies think that I am just being silly, and maybe I am just trying to give them a giggle and they tweeze me for 90% of my time there. I cry the WHOLE time.

The problem is, I have to be very methodical about when I go get my brows waxed. Due to my super sensitive skin, when I get my brows waxed I need to give myself a good 6 hours or so for the redness to go down. I look like someone painted my face with a red sharpie. This really limits the time when I can go to the salon. I would love to utilize my lunch break to get my brows waxed but I can't be all red faced the whole day. Honestly, the best time to go is early on a Saturday morning when I don't have any plans till dinner.

Also, this is one of those things that I have a hard time justifying spending money on. There is a way to groom your eyebrows without spending $20 everytime you go.... I just can't tolerate it.

Anyways.... last night I was going to bed and was really thinking how badly I REALLY needed to clean up my brows. But I couldn't go to the salon till Saturday at the earliest.

I was just envisioning my best friend Lindsee and the hours upon hours in highschool that she would sit on her bed and tweeze and tweeze and tweeze. She would tweeze so much that we would have to take her tweezers away. We would say "enough, Linds. You've done enough. Put the tweezers down. Enough is enough". Lindsee would cry out "Just 6 more! Please, I have just a few more to go!". But we held our ground. She had a tweezing addiction and we were her only hope. But last night, in that moment, I wanted to be Lindsee. And I just thought, "I am not going to spend money. I am an adult woman and I can tweeze my eyebrows".

So I got soaked a wash cloth in hot hot water and let it sit on my brows for 20 seconds or so. And then I sat myself down and got to pluckin'. I had to take a break every once in awhile. I was trying not to cry and every once in awhile Grantley would ask me "What is that sound you're making? What are you doing?". I then realized that I was making this whimper/moan/Owww sound as I was tweezing. But my visions of Lindsee empowered me to press on.

My eyebrows are well groomed this morning. And they were well groomed free of charge. Unless you count 15 minutes of excruciating pain as a charge. Cause I do.

5 comments:

Claire said...

I love this. I remeber Lindsee even brought her tweezers when we went camping. She was the true addict. I am proud of you for tweezing, I know that this is big for you :) love you!

Katie said...

First of all, I am SO very proud of you!

Secondly, did EVERYONE have a tweezing addiction in high school? I mean, seriously, there are pictures of me that NEED to be burned because of my bald eyebrow area! I appreciate this story more than you know!! LOL

John and Joanna said...

i almost wet my pants!!! How many times have we walked up the stairs in the Eddy house...and found our sweet Linds on that brass bed tweezing her life away :) Bless you Linds...

I am so happy for you groomed brows...free of charge!!!

I love you precious!

*and can we not forget the "hurtie" eye lash Linds had in Las Vegas :)

Lindsee Lou said...

Yes. I confess. I had/have an eyebrow tweezing addiction. BUT, the first step to healing is admitting your problem. :)

I am seriously laughing so very hard at the moment. Y'all know me all too well. It's scary!

But, Jen, I am SO proud of you taking the tweezers to your own face. Embrace them. They want to be your friend! :)

LOL!

Love you!

Lindsee Lou said...

P.S. I forgot to mention that the reason I am so tweezer happy is because when I do get a wax, we all know what happens to my face. Remember my sorority formal 3 years ago? Yes, a disaster to say the least! :) Tweezers are my only hope to good eyebrows.