Aging Disgracefully: The Desperate Longing for Eyebrows
Or How to Accept the Subtle Signs of Aging
Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that I have been painting in my eyebrows since around 1993. At first, I was using the makeup pencil brand that I had inherited from my mother: Maybelline’s soft black pencil, always noticeable with its bright pencil casing.
You had to actually sharpen this pencil, and somehow I always ended up scraping my brow with the pencil edge, especially as the pencil got closer to the end. In all honesty, it seemed as if I never got to the end of one of these pencils because I would always lose them along the way, whether it was my own fault or because my mom or one of my older cousins would take it out of my makeup bag.
After 1994, however, I met the pencil that would become my steady lifelong friend: the Avon Glimmerstick. I had grown up with Avon as once upon a time, a cousin would come by, chat with my mom, and drop off these books. So it was partially nostalgia that had me as a young adult pick up a book from a colleague who sold Avon as a side hustle. I soon became one of her biggest customers and when she left the company, my own biggest customer as I tried a stint as an Avon lady, where I quickly figured I was getting high on my own supply and not turning any profit.
But back to the brow pencils, these were brilliant. First, of all, I discovered that I didn’t need black but dark brown. These pencils were in fact not really pencils but more soft crayons that drew a much smoother line. They were also wind-up, which meant I could use the entire stick (I even found a clever hack to crack them open and get the last bit out). I even went so far as to buy the eyeliner and for a brief time, the lip liner colors.
Most people use eyebrow pencils to enhance what they already have. Unfortunately, in my family, we have dramatically thin eyebrows, and I have discovered that as we get older these brows thin to almost nonexistence. Whereas I would in my younger days only draw in a light outline of thin brows, now I find that I am painting on the entire brow. My brows are so thin now that I can actually count the strands I have left. This eyebrow thinning trend isn’t just in my family but a sign of aging. I was watching a Netflix comedy special hosted by Snoop Dogg and Guy Torry came to the stage. Not only has he gone Hollywood with the new smile, but he also has thinning eyebrows!
The upside to drawing eyebrows is that they can be shaped in any contour that the mood calls for. It makes it easy to keep up with the trends in eyebrow shaping (except the squiggly eyebrow trend which luckily died out quickly, thank God).
The downside is that these are very temporary looks. More than anything else, I have to be careful touching my face or wiping my brow, as at any moment, I could wipe my carefully crafted brows off my face, which I have done accidentally. The other drawback is accidentally using the wrong color (I have accidentally created purple brows and put black eyeliner on my lips when it was not on-trend).
It’s now 25 years later and I am still using Avon’s brow sticks, but not for long. Last year, my sister-cousin introduced me to a new concept: microblading. I had heard of the term before, but never really considered it—until I saw the result of it on my cousin’s face. My cousin is 4 years younger than me, and last year when she proposed it, we were initially going to get them done together. However, somehow she forgot our pact, which is just as good because I really needed to see a completed job before I committed to someone scarring my skin. I have no desire to look permanently surprised or angry by a badly drawn brow.
Forgive me if this sounds like clickbait or SEO content. Microblading in its simplest definition is a face tattoo. In two treatments pigment is applied to the existing brow line. The immediate effect is no longer having to draw on brows daily. the long-term effect is probably $100s of dollars saved in cosmetic purchases, especially since the traditional Glimmersticks have undergone brand enhancements and are no longer available through Avon. Luckily I’ve been able to buy lots through eBay, and a retired Avon lady donated 25 of them to me for the novel price of a $10 donation. I don’t even know what the new brand is called but hopefully, I won’t be needing them as I plan to have this microblading procedure done by my birthday this year.
I’m not as brave as Whoopi Goldberg, who I can recall* saying that eyebrows were the most useless parts of the body. She has shaved her eyebrows off for decades. Somehow this fact still fascinates people—as I was looking for her quote about them, I found an article as recent as June of this year marveling at this fact. I don’t like being brow deprived and feel awkward having people see me browbald (this is not a real word but it should be), so much so that when spending the night during girls’ trips or sleepovers, I awaken first just to wash my face and reapply the brows, pretending that I’m just an early riser with coffee and a book, and that like Beyonce, "I woke up like this.” I have friends who have never seen me without brows.
Seeing the result of my sister-cousin’s brow procedure made me more determined than ever to go through with this procedure, though I have an extremely low pain threshold. However, that sister-cuz assured me that it was not painful and that I would only have mild itching discomfort and the pain of peeling. She’s even become an Instagram model for the aesthetician’s page.
I’m sold.
For an extra treat, check out my recent interview for the London Writer’s Salon.
* I always like to say that my memory is pretty accurate, but I know of one discernable gap of time when this was not the case, and now I doubt everything. But I’m pretty sure I saw an interview with Whoopi once where she explained her hatred of eyebrows. Sadly, I could not find the clip as proof.
Did you do it? Did you micro blade? I had it done a few months back, and I love it!!
Also, "browbald"... brilliant! Should absolutely be a word!