Eyebrow Threading – Beauty Knows No Pain

Posted on September 6, 2015 Updated on January 12, 2019

I’ve always had an awkward relationship with my eyebrows. I wasn’t really much aware of them growing up until all my friends started tweezing theirs in high-school. This was something my mother was strictly against both me and my sister doing. She thought our dark, bushy eyebrows made us look like Brooke Sheilds in the movie Blue Lagoon. If you haven’t seen Blue Lagoon, imagine the most awkward prequel to Cast Away ever. Its about these two English schoolchildren siblings who are shipwrecked on a deserted island and are left to fend for themselves. They eventually figure out what sex is, Brooke Sheilds gets pregnant and has an incest baby (and bushy eyebrows), and then they get rescued. The end.

Awkward.

But of course she’ll have bushy eyebrows, she was stranded on a tropical island! Home-girl didn’t have access to a mirror or tweezers or melted sugar/wax or anything. But apparently, if she’d gotten a hold on some string, she would have been in business.

I’m sure you’ve seen these eyebrow threading salons pop up in malls everywhere. In them are usually a few women leaning far back in chairs while the thready-ladies (Threaders? Threadesses? Eyebrow dressers?) lean over them with string in their mouth and wave their hands about. What is this sorcery? I thought to myself. Sure, I had done some illegal tweezing in my high-school years (sorry Mom), and had tried waxing exactly two times as an adult (not a fan), but what was this threading? My first thought was that they were going to somehow weave threads into my eyebrows to make them bigger and bushier – my mother would be thrilled.

So that’s super not the case, as I discovered the other day when I wandered into one of these salons whilst meandering through the mall. Half-off Mondays? You got yourself a deal Ms. Eyebrow Dresser. My eyebrows were a tad out of control and I wasn’t in the mood for the typical post-wax 3-day healing period. I don’t know if I’m allergic to wax or my skin flares up as a form of protest, but after getting waxed the skin around my eyebrows will be all swollen and tender and… oozy? Does that happen to anyone else? But I digest…

Now they do a bunch of stuff at these eyebrow salons. Henna designs, eyelash extensions, Hoo Doo magic spells – but I didn’t even have to tell this lady what I was there for. She was like “Oh, I know. Get in the chair.” I oblidged. She sanitized her hands and my face, whipped out a cone of thread commonly used for sergers, cut off a piece about 4 ft long, folded it in half holding the loop in one hand, gave it a few twists, put one end in her mouth, and held the other end in her other hand.

I am being completely serious when I say that right up to that moment it did not at all occur to me that this process may be painful. Holy. Crap.

So waxing hurts, but its over in a second and then you’re done. THIS TOOK 10 MINUTES. With eyebrow threading you’re ripping out a whole row of eyebrow hairs at once, and they all come out with a big RRRIIIIIIPPPPP! Like your face is a yellow muscle shirt and the threads are Hulk Hogan. Over. And. Over. I could feel the little hairs landing all over my face, blown clear of the blast radius that was my forehead. The hairs literally jump right out of their little sockets. Wanna see? Check This out ->

How to Thread Eyebrows and Trim Them by BeautyHealthTravel

That video is pretty much exactly what happened, you see how she has one end in her mouth? She pulls that end by tilting her head back, thus sliding the twist down the string. As the twist slides down, it takes any hairs that are in the way with it. Bam – eyebrow threading. I may have been in excruciating pain, but not 2 minutes in I had already decided I was going to tip the hell out of Ms. Eyebrow Dresser. I could see how carefully and tactfully she moved her hands and I didn’t even need to tell her what eyebrow shape I wanted. Very Impressed.

And all she used was some string.

I did some research and found out that this kind of hair removal started somewhere in either Central Asia or India around 6000 years ago. It spread to the middle east, and eventually to the mall down the street from me. In Arabic its called ‘Khite’, and in Egyptian its called ‘Fatlah’. You can do it for you’re whole face, but not anywhere else cause the hairs are too coarse and/or numerous. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Apparently in Iran this is done only when you’re getting hitched or its a special occasion. It was also a sign that a girl had reached adulthood (apparently I’m a late bloomer). Its also popular in China and Korea, but apparently also only done on brides or married women. What do they do, card you first?

Overall I was very impressed. I feel that this technique allows for much more precision and sculpting than tweezing or hot wax. One of the reasons I wanted to try Threading was because I have such a bad reaction to the wax. Unfortunately my forehead skin suffered a similar fate with the Threading, the next day I awoke to find a bunch of redness and acne going on – see below. I can’t win. Not to mention I was picking eyebrow hairs off my face up until dinner that night. But I can’t complain too much, I think they still look pretty darn good.