Tuesday, May 29, 2012

They're sisters, not twins

Tonight as I stared in the mirror and applied a little moisturizer to my face (my friend and I were just talking about wrinkles earlier), I noticed I was looking a little scary. Sure, crazy post-shower hair, no make-up, old no-longer-white tank top, but the thing that made me pause were the dark, furry *things* above my eyes. Yep, they'd reached caterpillar stage again.

My eyebrows can grow in heavy and black, a stark contrast to my pale skin and ever-whitening hair. They were doing their very best Brooke Shields imitation in spite of the fact that I just can't pull off that look. Oh, I've warned them many times, yet they persist in growing wild and thick. Now some people would just say that looks aren't important (so why do they bother wrapping presents nicely or decorating their kitchen?) or they might make an appointment with their faithful eyebrow technician to have them professionally shaped with waxing or threading or whatever the latest weapon is. I, however, would rather save my money for an extra chai tea latte and so I prepared to do battle myself. Armed only with an old pair of tweezers (that happen to work better than any new pair I've bought), I go in for the attack.

The best advice I ever got about eyebrows is that your left eyebrow and your right are NOT twins, they are sisters. Even if you try to dress them identical outfits, they won't look exactly the same. You try again and again to find a cute matching fashion that takes into account the style and identity of both sisters, and one unexpectedly shows up in striped knee socks because she's feeling a little punk today. For me, my left eyebrow is the "good" sister, the one who's easy and complacent and aims to please. The right, however, presents her own challenges. A scar runs along the bottom where a toy cash register fell on her as a preschooler. She's got some lumpy spots and her hair grows longer and thicker at the end. Yep, the right sister is full of personality.

Clean up that top, but not the other. Thin these hairs, but not those. Match the left arch to the right one created by the scar. Slowly, and slightly painfully, the eyebrows look a little less threatening. They still don't look like twins, but at least they match well enough and they won't scare off small children anymore.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Valerie, You write really well! This is an entertaining piece. -Buddy-

Heather said...

I second that opinion written by Howard!