Tuesday, October 9, 2007

For a Plucking Change

I'm changing up a few things here on the blog. You might have noticed that I haven't posted a new Tales of The Yellow Flag either of the past two Sundays, and today there will be no Terrible Tuesday with Travis. Matter of fact I'm doing away with anything that imposes a deadline on me as far as this blog goes. Doesn't mean there won't be new stories it just means I'm not promising yo anything on any particular day.


Heck I might even pop in with a new edition of The Feedstore Chronicles some random Wednesday, a ref story on a Friday, or a Terrible Tale on a Saturday. In other words I'm going a bit more spontaneous.


Also I dropped the side bar of books I've read since I started this blog back in April. My original intent was to track the number of novels I read for one year but I got sick of updating the list and fell far behind. I figured the six month mark was a good place to call it quits anyway since I can multiply by two. Using that inexact math and had me pace remained the same that puts me at 74 books a year. Not as many as I would have guessed but a fair number just the same. and well above the average according to the surveys, especially for men. I think they claimed the average American man read something like 3 books a year. Pathetic even the real number is three times that.


Also, I'm going to start a new reoccurring type of post, to appear on random days as something occurs to me called RIDDLE ME THIS.

Now there are lots of things in this world that I do not understand. Things that baffle, bewilder, and befuddle me. I'm not saying they are wrong simply that I do not understand them. The Riddle me this pieces will give all of you, the readers of this blog a chance to teach me something and explain the finer points of something that I do not quite comprehend.


Like what you ask. Well, there is no time like the present to start -- so here is your first edition of ... Riddle Me This.

Remember those infomercials a few years ago where they were hawking this spray to help cover baldness. They showed some grinning chrome dome as he happily spray painted his scalp. Hiding baldness and destroying the ozone all in one fell swoop.



Most of us laughed at this ridiculous notion and said, Nobody in their right mind would ever think that looks natural. Why not just go bald gracefully since the comb-overs, bad rugs, and spray on hair jobs only highlight the fact that you're locks are thinning a bit.


So that brings me to the true nature of this post. The very thing that makes me say ... Riddle Me This ... why do women torture themselves by plucking out their eyebrows one by one only to take a glorified pencil and draw them a new set of phony arches?


Ninety percent of the time these stenciled on brows are ridiculous looking. At least in my humble opine. Some are even done in blues and greens and purples, or like the set I saw yesterday Red. I'm talking Bozo nose red? Maybe there are a few talented artists out there but when was the last time you saw a natural set of brows that fit anywhere in the primary color wheel? Roy G Biv indeed. Now I'm not talking about those that enhance or magnify the brow already there. I'm talking about the one that wipe the pallet clean and start over. Why oh why?



Come on ladies. Help me out. Where is the logic in this.


Oh and as an aside, no guy has ever said, She has a great smile, a wonderful personality, and a fabulous body, but those eyebrows of hers are more than I can deal with. If only she'd pluck the suckers out and draw on a new set. I mean come on, You remember what those babies of Brooke Shields looked like and many a guy once fantasized about her.

19 comments:

preTzel said...

Hey, I'd like to know too because I do not pluck or wax my caterpillars. I do try to keep them as a set instead of one long critter because two caterpillars is always better than one in my opinion. Do you know what it feels like to pluck them? It hurts! Like shoving roofing nails under your fingernails hurts. I don't get it. *shrug* I'm also not a girly - girl either so maybe that is what is wrong with me.

And let me tell you - we used to have this rental property and the female renter shaved (yes, shaved) her brows and then would draw them back on. (Go figure.) One night the water pipe had broke so we went over to turn the water off so until the plumber could get there in the morning. She answered the door with one brow on and one off. I laughed so freaking hard. She was perlexed and the one that was painted on kept going UP and down and that made me laugh even harder. Mr. preTzel made me go back to the car. Bummer.

Can't wait to read the responses from the girly - girls to see why they torture...err, pretty themselves up that way. :)

Shauna said...

LOL! I don't get it either and find that I have a hard time NOT staring when I come across women who do. It looks ridiculous in my opinion. However, I do pluck the strays. I think nicely shaped, real eyebrows can enhance one's eyes and give them a clean look. And I agree with pretzel that two are definitely better than one. I also think two looks better on guys as well. Not just a woman thing.

preTzel said...

Oh man, Shauna, that one eyebrow thing on a guy is almost creepy. *shudder* I need a guy to have two eyebrows.

Trav...I really think your next one needs to be about back or butt hair because I totally don't get that on a guy either. :)

Monnik said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Monnik said...

Good God. I can't type to save my life. Here's what I meant to say...

Oh, I liked the sidebar on the books you've read. I will miss it.

I think overplucked eyebrows look ridiculous. Scary, even.

Speaking of the unibrow, In college, I had a boyfriend whose frat brothers bet him that I wouldn't let him grow out his unibrow. When he told me that, I thought they were crazy - I wasn't that controlling, crazy girlfriend they'd pegged me for. But after that puppy grew in, I couldn't take it anymore, and I explained that it HAD TO GO. He eventually caved and changed the unibrow to two separate brows. We broke up shortly afterwards.

Duck said...

Ah yes, the drawn-in eyebrows. I had a post on my old blog about this exact topic. I too don't get it, and think it looks horrible. There's always some lady who's drawn them in super high so they have this constant look of surprise on their face. You just know that at some point they reached this point of no return and had to pull out the pencil.

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

Ok - don't feel bad that I am saying this, but I do know some woment who draw in their brows. One because nature gave her nonexistent ones and the other because she lost them to cancer. My friend doesn't draw hers in anymore, she gets them tatooed on. TATTOO of eyebrows - yes OW! But it stays on longer and then she goes to refresh it when it starts fading. The other draws her on and let me tell you it is very disconcerting to see her when she forgets to draw her eyebrows in.

I also knew older women who plucked their eyebrows off and drew them in because that was the style way back when (think Lana Turner) and they never grew in after constantly plucking it off.

Travis Erwin said...

I really think your next one needs to be about back or butt hair ...

Hey, Now you're getting personal!

And Ello I meant to mention that I understood someone with cancer that had little choice drawing a subtle brow.

It is the high arching rainbow ones that really get me.

Brooke said...

I don't touch my eyebrows, now go read my blog!

WordVixen said...

Hm.. I had a friend that shaved hers off. Not completely- she left a thin line. It seemed much less painless than plucking, but I could never get the courage to put a razor next to my eye.

jjdebenedictis said...

I don't know why anyone does it now. (Or why anyone waxes off their pubic hair, but that's a compleeeetely different topic.) I have heard the fashion started in Europe 'round about Elizabeth I's time, when peasants were thought to be "low brow" and aristocracy was thought to be "high brow"--literally.

They believed well-bred people had fine, high eyebrows and commoners had coarse, low brows. Thus, well-born ladies started plucking their eyebrows out and drawing them in nice and high and thin.

As far as unattainable standards of beauty go, I suppose it's a lot less ridiculous than going under the knife to look like Barbie.

Terrie Farley Moran said...

Travis,

I plead not guilty!! Hooray!! Usually when it comes to fashion errors I am guilty, but not this time!!

You have made my day!

As for your idea to wing it with the blog--great idea--keep us guessing.

Terrie

Aaron said...

Oh, man. This is an awesome post. I couldn't help but to start laughing halfway through reading it because I wonder the same thing. My girlfriend is so blonde, half the time I wonder if she even has any. (Painting them might actually be a deal breaker!)

Patti said...

we pluck the strays and then fill in the sparser areas that we haven't plucked...that's my story and i'm sticking to it.

Charles Gramlich said...

I only notice that a woman "has" eyebrows. Nothing about whether they are plucked or not. My attention is generally elsewhere.

Tee/Tracy said...

LOL - I like with the doing away of anything that requires a deadline.

Riddle me this looks like it'll be fun and interesting.

As for the eyebrows - some women are just not good at this. One should not completely do away with their eyebrows ala Whoopi Goldberg, and then attempt to draw them back on. It will never look right.

Most women need to pluck a little bit though, just to make the shape nice and give it a nice little arch. You can see on the photo in my sidebar of my blog - I pluck, but I do not draw on!

Bernita said...

Have never seen the painted ones - does some cult celebrity do it and they are fan-plucking?

Lane Mathias said...

Nothing wrong with a nice neat brow (or two). Something mid way between Betty Davis and Frida Kahlo is probably a good bet:-)

Anonymous said...

Ah, Travis, what will we do with you? Not everyone looks good a la natural. Some people (male and female) need to pluck stray eyebrows. Those wirey ones that stick out at odd angles and wave in a nonexistent breeze remind me of spiders and that's just too scary. It's kind of like men with long nose hairs. Just cut them! Women know it takes an awful lot of work to look "naturally beautiful." And you guys are worth it, but only because we are, too.