You Have to Suffer to Be Beautiful

I have a confession to make. I am lazy about beauty matters. For years, I have been coasting on my good looks. (Yes, I realize this sounds conceited, but I have heard that I am pretty or hot or attractive or whatever enough times over the year to figure that I can’t be too hideous. And yes, I’m sure not everyone finds me attractive, and if you’ve met me and think that I’m totally fugly, feel free to comment to that effect.) But as I get older, I am trying to make a little more of an effort. I always wear makeup. I have my hair done (although not nearly often enough). I always wear sunscreen on my face and I make a lot of effort with my skin. But beyond that, I’ve never bothered too much. For example, I have never had my brows done. I tweeze stray hairs now and then, and for the past few months, I have been thinking that I need to make more of an effort, but meh, that would require getting off the couch and doing something about it.

But on Saturday, this all changed. I was at the salon having my hair cut and colored. My hairdresser and I discussed what I wanted to do for my wedding, and she somehow convinced me that I needed to make four appointments between now and the wedding: 1) having my color redone 10 days before the wedding (less than 4 weeks since my last appointment. Left to my own devices, I would never get it done that quickly.), 2) a hair and makeup consultation to decide what I want to do for the wedding, 3) having my hair flat-ironed the day before the wedding, and 4) hair and makeup the day of the wedding. I barely make it to the salon 4 times a year, so going there 4 times in 10 days should be very interesting.

My hairdresser also convinced me that my “brows need work” and that she should wax them. I was already overwhelmed by the prospect of all those wedding appointments, so I agreed without thinking. I figured, how bad can it be? I tweeze my brows and that’s really painful, so this can’t be that much worse. And after the unfortunate incident between the bottom of my foot and the Corona bottle in 2002 (that’s a blog post in itself), I received most of the stitches after the anesthetic had worn off, so I know I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. But this was really fucking painful. The first rip wasn’t so bad, but then each successive one was exponentially more painful. And at the end of it, my face looked like I had put sunscreen everywhere but around my eyebrows and then spent about 8 hours in the sun. The redness went away, but the bumps are only just disappearing now. Is it supposed to be this bad? I do have sensitive skin, so maybe that makes it worse. I came home and Lord Kissington looked horrified.

“What was wrong with your brows?” he asked.
“Oh, they were really awful. They needed work,” I said.
“But they don’t really look any different.”

Lord Merlin came over to check out my hair and brows and also thought they didn’t really look that different. They both marveled that I had willingly put myself through this.

Then I made the mistake of mentioning this to my mother. She was beside herself. I had to explain to her that most women I know are actually waxed from head to toe and that having your brows done is really no big deal. I explained what a Brazilian is and she was completely shocked. How has she never heard of a Brazilian? Then she launched into a long story about how the only person she ever knew who waxed anything was a friend from high school, but “she was Italian and she really was very hairy, you know.” (My apologies for any anti-Italian sentiments contained in that statement. Personally, I love Italians. I’m marrying one and all.)

So everyone was horrified, but they’re all wrong. I feel like my brows have never looked this good. So now I have yet another thing to keep up with in life. Because I think this is one of those things I can never go back from.