The last time I moaned about my eyebrows being too thin and not long enough, a man friend told me to think myself lucky that's the only thing I have that's too thin and not long enough.
Fair point, well made. But what's a gal gotta do to get a decent pair of brows? They do, after all, help shape the face. While I'm not ready to go the tattoo route because a) some places charge $1,000 and b) they usually look awful, it's time to check out other options.
I visited the premises of one Anastasia in Beverly Hills. Not only is she probably the world's most expensive eyebrow plucker, Anastasia sells a range of products she claims will give us eyebrows to be proud of.
An assistant offered to demonstrate their most popular products. She found a template of the perfect brow for me after measuring angles and doing various calculations. I loved it that someone was taking my plight so seriously.
Twenty minutes and $122 later, I left the store with Anastasia's Essential Brow Kit and the thickest eyebrows since Joan Crawford. I wasn't fooling anyone. They screamed fake.
An avalanche of tweezers, brushes and powders later -- enough to open my own brow boutique -- I have finally devised an essential kit that works for me: a sable brush, Merle Norman's Storm powder, Lacrosse slanted tweezers and a 10X magnifying mirror.
Although I don't have any eyebrow hairs to spare, there are still a few stragglers under the brow that need plucking. Just when I thought all was well in my own private beauty parlor and smiled smugly that I had cracked my great brow conundrum, I caught a glimpse in my magnifying mirror of what appeared to be the makings of a moustache.
It wasn't as spectacular as Frida Kahlo's, but it was an issue that needed addressing, stat.
I reached for my tweezers. As I drew the magnifying mirror towards me, another horror revealed itself: A veritable bush of nose hair. While I looked at my reflection, it dawned on me that tweezers were no longer enough to keep my unwanted hair in line. It was time to pull out the big guns -- and time to Google "laser hair removal."
Sometimes it's hard to be a woman.