No one told me that the road to perfectly arched eyebrows is littered with curses, pain and a trickle of tears. Unlike some members of the female persuasion, I am lousy when it comes to keeping myself presentable and pleasing to the eyes.
Yes, I love my shoes and girly-girl clothes but the words facial, eyebrow threading, underarm wax are foreign concepts that do not ring a bell to me. Maybe it’s the fact that I grew up boyish so aside from my daily grooming habits, along with all the shaving and plucking, plunking money on a third party salon to yank my unwanted hair off or pop my zits is always out of the question. In my mind, if I can do it myself, why should I pay someone to do the dirty work.
A bit of history — it took me my third year in college to have my eyebrows fixed. Imagine all the plucking and cursing while I was threatening to disembowel my sister who was having a grand time yanking all the hair off my very busy eyebrows. But I was lousy at maintaining its arch so I ended up taking care of a lopsided eyebrow which is a little bit shorter on the right compared to the left. With the proper make-up, no one knew that I looked like a hastily-drawn character in a shojo manga.
Fast forward to close to fifteen years — I am standing in front of a receptionist of the Glorietta branch of Let’s Face It, a well-known spa and derma clinic, agreeing to have my eyebrows threaded. I was just supposed to accompany my sister but she talked me into having my eyebrows fixed.
I was ushered inside after a 10-minute wait. So, this is how a spa and facial center looked from the inside. Rows and rows of bed, clients lying almost next to each other as the attendants either clean their face, give them a quick mani-pedi, thread their eyebrows or give them a quick facial. To my right, a corpulent middle aged guy is obviously enjoying his afternoon facial — since his loud snoring filled up the room, pushing the attendants and other patients to break into giggles. I found the facility clean and quiet, even with the snoring which was competing with the muzak lightly playing throughout the center. Attendants are in full uniform, including gloves and face masks during the service. Banter is light and they are will not push you to avail of their other services.
I have no idea how eyebrow threading works. So that when the attendant pulled the thread and started working on my irregularly tamed eyebrows, I left it all to the Higher Power to give me a pleasant result. Fortunately, the Let’s Face It staff was quick, efficient and tried to be as gentle as possible when she started running the thread through my eyebrow area. She never hesitated to ask if I was comfortable — this basically erased any fears or reservations I have, being a first-time customer. Since my eyebrows are uneven, she had to remove more on the right side of my face. I suck in my breath and gave a go-signal. How do I describe the feeling of a bare thread running on your eyebrow line, magically plucking the excess hairs? It felt like my cat, Sayuri is playfully gnawing on my face or it’s a lot similar to ant bites, albeit more tolerable.
I ended up liking the experience and the result, much to my surprise.
I liked it so much that I will definitely go back in a week or two to maintain my eyebrows. While there, I might be tempted to go for a quick facial, another first for a hopeless girl like me. And that deserves another post.
Let’s Face It (One Stop Facial Salon)
3F Glorietta 3, Ayala Center, Makati
Eyebrow threading is PHP150 only
For a list of their services, please go here
LIFESTYLE WANDERLAND 