On The Fringe

Although, I must say, of all the cosmetology nightmares, my favorite horror story is that of Mary’s eyebrows.  It was the week we were learning about eyebrow shaping, facial hair removal, and of course, make-up styles of the 1930’s.  There were two classes, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  I was in the afternoon class that took me from school just before math, but somehow I wasn’t too upset. The students from the morning had mistakenly left the wax machine on, so it was practically boiling by the time we arrived.  When our eyebrow models showed up, the wax was hotter than any of us realized. Mary, our unfortunate student model, was about to have a once in a lifetime experience. The wax would remove her unwanted eyebrow hair without a problem, along with her hair follicle and a little skin as well.  The strip of muslin was dipped into the scorching wax and carefully placed on Mary’s already thin 1970’s style brow.  She cringed.  There was no turning back now.  Mary watched with a hand held mirror as the muslin was ripped from her brow.  With the strip, gone were the eyebrows forever.

I hadn’t realized how funny people looked without eyebrows until that day. They really are the frames for your eyes. Mary observed her new look with what I thought was utter astonishment…she seemed surprised, but how would we know?  After all, we’d just literally ripped the expression right off of her face.  She longingly searched for some hair, any hair, but there was none to be found. The wax had done its job a little too well. Eyebrows have a way of forecasting your emotions and, from that day on, I never could tell if she was scared, happy, or sad. I continue to this day to trim Mary’s bangs, and can be trusted never to forget the mistake we made so many years ago. They are never cut above her eyelids.