In the midst of this Chinese zodiac Year of the Monkey, my monkey-see, monkey-do nature—as in "Do you…"—has hit critical mass, escalating to strangers: "Do you floss?" "Do you believe in God?" "Do you think this elevator will get stuck?" "Do you like my hair?" "Do you read your horoscope?" "Do you have a good psychiatrist?" "Do you see what I see?" I have a question foryou: Why is everyone avoiding me?
Traits of those born in a simian year include lively and mischievous, curious and cunning. (I might also add excellent groomers.) These are facts. It says so right here on my place mat at Big Wong King Chinese restaurant on Mott Street in New York's Chinatown.
Me, I was born in the Year of the Ox. We bovine kind are said to be resolute, independent, honest, thick-skinned, and in my case, moo-dy and seeking asylum in India.
But to quote Charles Darwin, we're all chimps, and when it comes to grooming, I'm top banana. Just ask Julie Creamer, my junior-high best friend. As a budding Beauty Adventuress, I started plucking Jules's eyebrows in the seventh grade, and she rode that perfect arch all the way to being crowned Stevens High School Homecoming Queen. Word of my mad (cow) skills spread, and soon I was pruning overgrown newbies before, during, and after class; I even reserved an Urgent Care chair in the cafeteria.
Come college, I bartered my brow talent for everything from class notes to beer to mixtapes, bonding with my dorm mates over the intimate act of shaping their brows, serving up a shot of liquid courage, giggling over the pain of the pluck!—all the while trading secrets and dreams and fears, loving that we were such girls. It was a socialist sorority, walk-ins welcome!
That's how I bonded with my editor Liesl lo these many years ago. She'd just landed atPremiere magazine, and between "hello" and "nice to meet you," I plucked her from obscurity. She's been editing my stories and I've been editing her eyebrows ever since. Or so I thought.
I pop into her ELLE office, and when she swivels around in her chair, my tweezers fall from my hand—Liesl has cheated on me! Her brows are skinny, some 50 hairs underweight; it's like looking at Carmen Miranda without a fruit basket on her head. Seeing me, she begins to cry.
"Liesl, who did this to you?"
"I did this to me! I was doing a little maintenance, and next thing I knew, I was clicking castanets!" She blows her nose. "Can you fix me?"
That would demand a high level of training, which would require me to go undercover at the top-ranked school for lead sales aestheticians (LSAs) seeking an advanced degree: Benefit Brow University. (Yes, it exists.)
Liesl's face lights up: "It's a Beauty Adventure!" We call Laurie, ELLE's features director and head of special ops, who arrives with a ticket to San Francisco, an intel sheet, and an exact replica of a Benefit business card: Holly Millea, LSA; Brow Bar Harold Square, NYC. "That will get you in the door," Laurie says. "From there, you're on your own."
Before I depart, I tap the inimitable Dennis Gross, MD, for dermatological recon, as in, Why do we have eyebrows, anyway?
"They don't really serve a purpose," Gross says. "Once upon a time, they did. They were longer, more bushy; they protected the eyes from windstorms in the desert, or some environmental event that humans were exposed to. We now live in a world where eyelashes can handle that responsibility. Personally, I think the function of eyebrows is a vestige."
That said, he says, "One benefit that is prehistoric in nature and may still be the case today is that eyebrows are a sign of fertility and virility. The animal world wants to mate with a partner who has signs of superior DNA. Eyebrows are one of the physical features seen as attributes that make you more attractive to the opposite sex." Go big, or go home alone.
By the time I land in San Fran, I have the answers to the Brow U exam beyond memorized—I have them written on my arm: "7" (number of weeks to regrow a tweezed eyebrow hair); "0.16 mm" (rate of daily growth); "3–4 weeks" (eyebrow life-span); "2003" (first Benefit Brow Bar opens); "1,800" (Brow Bars worldwide)….
Flashing my faux business card at the front desk, I catch the elevator with a gaggle of girls and a guy named Pablo to the 22nd floor. "Where's your pink?" someone asks. Pink?
"You're supposed to wear some pink," says another. "Did you forget?" My tweezers are pink! "Here, you can borrow my necklace," says a blond bohemian beauty, bedazzling me with a sparkly vintage piece. "I'm Juliette, by the way."
A dozen of us in all, we fill out name tags while waiting for the professor. Pablo suggests, "Let's introduce ourselves, and tell something you've never told anyone else." (I am not making this up.) "I haven't had sex with my husband since I got braces," Paula says. "I have a wild hair on my chest I have to pluck," Juliette admits. "I just got out of prison," I confess.
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