Furrowing my fabulous brows

“Who did your eyebrows?” I turned and looked at the saleslady who asked me that question in the aisle at the beauty store.

“Um, I’m pretty sure they came with the rest of my face.” I responded.

“No, I mean who shapes them? They are fabulous!” she gushed. “Thanks,” I said. “I do.”

“You wax your OWN eyebrows?!?!” she exclaimed.

“No, I tweeze them,” I replied. I was trying not to think about how strange it was to have this conversation with a perfect stranger, or anybody for that matter, and figure out how to end it so I could get back to the serious business at hand of finding a new mascara.

She stared at me in abject horror and then lowered her voice to a whisper.

“Ohhh. You should never tweeze your eyebrows!”

I raised my well-shaped, apparently fabulous eyebrows. “If I don’t I will look like a cro-magnon woman.”

“No, I mean you should only wax. Never tweeze.”

“Why?”

“If you tweeze, they grow back heavier.” I laughed. “They couldn’t possibly grow back any heavier than they already are. I have such a bad unibrow that when I was younger my brothers used to call me ‘Cyclops.’”

“You can also OVER-TWEEZE and then you would have to draw your eyebrows back on until they grew back in,” she continued.

I wasn’t sure what I had done to warrant this run-in with the eyebrow police. Maybe God was punishing me for making fun of a friend who had gotten too much Botox and now looked like she was perpetually surprised.

Truth be told, Eyebrow Lady was not the first person who had recommended I wax, rather than tweeze. Is it time consuming? Sometimes. Have I ever over-tweezed? Absolutely. Do the hairs grow back heavier? Who cares? I have better things to do than obsess about the optimal way to shape my eyebrows. However, for some reason, some people who are firmly in the wax versus tweeze camp feel it is their civic duty to convert the tweezers among us to the waxing side.

“Well, the good news is, you seem to have great tweezer control and your brows are perfect,” she said.

“Thanks goodness,” I said. I was so relieved to know that I had her eyebrow blessing. I was truly worried that my subscription to “Eyebrow Style” magazine would be taken away and I would be banned from the mall for wanton eyebrow shaping.

“By the way,” she said. “Have you ever considered threading?”

I rolled my eyes beneath my fabulous eyebrows.

“Yes,” I said. “But only for my mustache and beard.” For more Lost in Suburbia, follow Tracy on Facebook at www.facebook. com/LostinSuburbiaFanPage and on Twitter @TracyBeckerman.