Beautification initiative

Talk about shaggy!!

Okay. A New Year. Pledges for improvement. My doctor wants me to watch my cholesterol. My closets are a mess. I had my performance review at work, and want to work toward my Assigned Goals. I want to walk in the mountains more, do more writing, organize my bookcases and lose about five pounds.

Well, this weekend I took the first positive step towards improvement for the New Year. I got my brows done.


It was initially alarming to realize when the year counter clicked past 40 and kept on going, that my body and my face were changing. One of the interesting changes was the sudden sprouting of hairs on my upper lip. [The Man I Love] calls them my "catfish whiskers" and in the beginning even volunteered to help me pluck them out - but, sadly, as time progressed they became too abundant for him to deal with.

I have always had my brows shaped at my stylists', and it only seemed right to ask them to do a little number on the moustache, too. But about four years ago, I got burned by an unskilled cosmetologist. No lasting damage, thankfully, but who wants a moustache-shaped scab adorning her upper lip for two weeks?

In India and the Middle East, ladies remove unsightly hair from their faces using a twisted thread. Los Angeles has thriving immigrant communities, and there are beauty shops all over the place where threading replaces waxing for beauty.


I go to Rozina's beauty salon on Venice Boulevard in Culver City. Although there are always clients coming and going, there's usually not much of a wait, maybe just a few minutes. You sit back in the chair. The stylist combs your brow and if you have any special instructions, this is the time to give them. Then you close your eyes, and she starts in.

You hear the faint buzz of the thread spinning on itself, and feel the hairs pulled out with a slight tingle - no worse than tweezing; not as bad as the quick shock of waxing, but it takes longer. You have to help out by using your fingers to pull the skin around your eye taut, and then later to plump our your lip with your tongue to make the hairs easier to grab. The slight sting always makes my left eye water - not my right eye, only my left. Why is that?

It's over in about two minutes. You get a little swabbing of witch hazel, maybe a touch of the brush, and you're good to go.

There's usually Bollywood music playing on a TV over the little payment counter, so you can lie back and listen. The stylists chat among themselves or with their customers. Sometimes there's someone getting a haircut. Once I was here when a little boy about four years old was getting his first haircut. He was terrified, and screamed like a siren while his mother and the stylist murmured and pled with him. Poor little guy.

Good thing he wasn't getting his hairs pulled out by a thread!


There. All done. What do you think?

Eyebrow shaping costs about $8. The upper lip costs about the same. I drop a $20, and figure I've gotten a pretty good value.


Oops. Missed a hair!