EyebrOWs

I was reading an online message board where the advantages and disadvantages of threading, tweezing and waxing eyebrows were under discussion. Methods of reducing the pain, or just getting used to it were mentioned, with some of the women claiming they no longer feel any pain & pondering if they might have deadened the nerve endings over the years. Stretching the skin, applying ice-packs, applying hot towels, doing it quick, just gritting your teeth... How the new growth can look like black-heads and the difficulties of extracting them.

Well, I felt like I was in a foreign land, disembodied and alienated. I wonder why it's accepted that this is normal and something women do. Why are eyebrows sculpted or removed and redrawn? Why are we wincing and tweaking into the mirror for hours on end? Isn't it just a bit ... weird?

You only really notice eye-brows when they're badly done. A natural eye-brow doesn't draw attention to itself. I mean, there are monobrows, but really the proportion of women who 'need' to pluck can't be that big, can it? And who exactly goes that close to someone's face and studies their stray hairs?

Absurd standards of conventional beauty, you have no greater illustration than a bunch of women discussing the masochistic practices they put themselves through.