Perfect Eyebrows: Thread ‘Em
When it comes to brows, it has always been about either plucking or waxing – that is, until I was introduced to the amazing world of threading and realized that New York has tons of awesome (and cheap!) threading salons all around the city. I started having my brows threaded a couple years ago and seriously… I will never go back to plucking.
Threading is an ancient beauty practice that originated in India – think of it as old-school epilation. Rather than plucking one hair at a time, it allows you to remove short lines of hair at once. Unlike waxing, however, it gives you a lot more control over the shape of your brows and the whole process takes about 5-10 minutes. Personally, I’ve never waxed my brows because I don’t like the idea of hot wax/pulling on my face. I’ve also seen too many waxing incidents where the woman ends up looking like she’s constantly saying “ooooOOOooo!!!”
Having your eyebrows threaded is one of the easiest ways to brighten up your eyes. When you walk out of the salon, your face feels cleaner and your brows are so perfectly shaped that you almost don’t need anything else in terms of makeup. It’s funny how people don’t notice eyebrows unless they’re really bad or absolutely perfect. In this case, threading usually results in the latter. Does it hurt? Nah, not really – especially when you have a good esthetician working on you.
Ideally, you should have your brows done every two weeks. Fortunately for New Yorkers, there’s several great threading salons here that are affordable enough to make it a regular part of your beauty routine. Here are my two favorite places:
Looks Eyebrow Threading Salon (East 14th Street between 2nd and 3rd): Ask for Jyoti, the owner. She’s the one who popped my “threading cherry” and the only person I allowed near my brows for the first year. Cost is $10.
Perfect Brows NYC (several Upper East Side locations): Since I can’t always make it downtown to Looks, I had to find a backup threading salon in my neighborhood. I’ve seen several different people at Perfect Brows, and they all do the same consistent work – all for only $7.
