Threading One's Way to Beauty

Charlotte asked in the comments section about threading and I meant to blog about my London threading experience so here it is.

When my eyebrows are bushy and look like two caterpillars, I feel undone. It's amazing how two areas of hair can make or break your diva moment. Unkempt eyebrows are a no-no. God bless the women who came up with tweezing, waxing and threading. Perfect eyebrows really frame the face, make eyemakeup look polished and clean and just are...well...necessary. If I were stranded on an island, I would want perfect eyebrows.

Worse is when someone mauls your eyebrows. I have had many a bad eyebrow experience - both at the hands of so-called professionals and self-inflicted. The Voldemort look is not attractive and I have learnt the critical skill of filling in "bald spots" with the light feathering of a dark brown eyebrow pencil. lol

At home, I would have my eyebrows waxed. In London, I have them threaded. I had never even heard of threading before my visits here but threading booths are common in my neck of the woods, and for a fiver, convenient as well. As the name suggests, threading employs a strand of thread, which is rolled over the brow or wherever you want work done. This traditional technique is widely practised in India and the Middle East, and apparently, in London. lol. Seriously though, I guess where there are lot of Middle Eastern immigrants, threading in this city is quite common. I am not complaining. It's great.

So when I realised that trying to tame these bushy brows myself was an exercise in futility back in October, I headed to the mall to have my brows threaded. It's quite popular as well, as the long line of women ahead of me confirmed. All sorts of women were waiting - black women, white women, Asian women. I really did not know what to expect from two women standing in a corner of the mall - no salon, no door - just a small booth, with a couple chairs and a cash register. But when I considered my options - an expensive wax job that I could not guarantee would not burn off my eyebrows, or worse, trying to neaten my brows myself - well, I stayed in the line.

Someone had already described threading as stomach churning, so I was going brave. But in the end, it was not that bad. It's not the most comfortable thing and I would even say, the pain of waxing strips coupled with hot wax being yanked off my brows is more tolerable than the thin thread slicing into my follicles. The end result though - very good. My brows were perfect. Threading gives the threader a lot of control over the shape of the brow, and once she knows what line and length she is going for, then it is pretty easy.

I will probably go this weekend to get them done. But here is a great video from a self-threader. I don't think I could do it myself though.