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The Brow knows — trust me I know.
One of the hardest parts of moving to a new place – no matter your age – is finding your crew of providers. These can include anything and everything from cleaners to the dog’s daycare to your internist and beyond. Eventually this all sorts itself out in time, but it’s not easy and probably one of the most difficult parts of creating a new life for one’s self somewhere new – even in Madame‘s town!
What do you do? For me, my first step is to read reviews. Believe me, this is no sure bet! In Seattle, I got one of my worst haircuts ever from a guy who had the BEST reviews. When I asked him how he could do such a bad job on me – yes! I let him know he was terrible – he copped to having written these reviews himself. What?
So, that’s how it is these days. Still, when I was looking for a brow bar in Madame’s town for tweezing this publication swore by this person – who shall remain unnamed.
The long and short of it is trust your gut when you meet a new service provider, even a brow person with an exceptional review.
It was ten minutes for $100. In those few minutes, she managed to tell me my brows were too thin, needed no tint (HA! Any woman over 50 needs the tint!) and that no lotion or product should ever hit my brow. She would see me every 4 weeks to begin, but hoped to move me to 6 weeks.
She tweezed me as I sat there in the chair. It hardly felt like anything. She was all about using a brow pen/pencil – hate that – (again!) give me the tint.
Still, I was almost sold on the facts she was selling me on – my brows looked like crap, no need for tint, never use any product on your brow except her brow pencil – until she said, “You don’t need neck cream.”
Just recently I had been checking out my neck thinking it was in pretty good shape – I was happy that the cream I was doing was doing its job – how novel.
This brow person said, “I went to skin school, it’s doing nothing for you. It’s going to droop and sag, nothing you can do.”
With that she kicked me out of the seat with the quaint little saying, “Less is more.”
I went up to pay, the gal all gooey-eyed over brows, handed me the brow pen/pencil (whateve you called it), charged me for it, and asked to set my next appointment. Which I did.
That day I was sold. I thought to myself, “My brow gal back in Seattle was crap, I don’t need any color or creams, just give me the brow pencil and I am set.” I had bought the Kool Aid and drunk it down quick.
The next morning as I sat in front of my 5xs magnifier lit mirror, I noticed she hardly tweezed anything at all. Not only was there no color, there were little hairs everywhere – what the freak?
And there was that brow pencil sitting there staring at me. I hate fiddly brow pencils – that’s why I get tint every month. I opened it up and had no idea what I was doing, but it hardly made any difference. My brows were ashen with prickly hairs popping out all over.
Then I went into the bathroom and I looked at my neck. Still, I thought, looks damn good for 50-something. Then I thought about her. That brow person. When I actually thought about how she looked, she looked like shit. I can’t recall the features, but I think she lives by what she said, “It’ll sag, nothing you can do.” She learned that at skin school.
Was it the truth or just something to say to make sure your fellow 50-year-old cohort, goes her way of sagging? Not sure – but I liked the way I looked and how I had put together my regime carefully to keep it going as long as I could – knowing nature will eventually collapse it all.
I threw away the brow pencil and found myself a new Brow Lady. She is walk-in friendly, gladly gives me the tint, and spends time removing my makeup and tweezing it all. It’s been almost a year and we are working it out. She is much younger than me and she still gets it. (Let me know if you want her name!)
Give me my color. Give me my tweeze. And keep the advice and brow pencil to yourself.
For me, in this case, More is More. I am sure Madame agrees.
