Roitfeld Beauty Secret: No Plucking

Kate Ringo Suzuki, our plucky editor-at-large in New York, has graciously agreed to recount a very painful experience for us: the overtweezing of the eyebrows. Ladies, I hope that you will take Kate at her word and put down those pluckers today! After all, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld frequently states that the best advice she has received from her mother is not to pluck her eyebrows... and if Carine need not tweeze, we need not tweeze...

Roitfeld Beauty Secret: No Plucking
By Kate Ringo Suzuki 

I'm on a quest for “Carine” eyebrows and I’m failing. I want full, lush, irreverently sexy eyebrows, the kind of eyebrows that hint at spirited, wild, and untamed youthfulness. Instead my eyebrows are disappointingly American. I blame Sassy magazine and their damned eyebrow plucking tutorials. There is a whole generation of American women who can be correctly identified as former Sassy aficionados simply by noting the significant span that exists between their eyebrows. These days the beauty editors at Glamour and Allure are savvy enough to send their readers off for professional eyebrow shaping, but back in the early Nineties it was all about do-it-yourself eyebrows. The idea was to run a pencil vertically by your nose and pluck anything beyond the pencil’s width — except that most girls got a little confused and plucked exactly where the pencil rested on the eyebrow. OOPS! 

Did you know that sometimes — horror of horrors! — eyebrows refuse to grow back? Years may pass without picking up a tweezer and yet the eyebrows stay their plucked selves. The eyebrow lady you visit will tell you to faithfully smear castor oil on overplucked areas to stimulate growth but she is full of it. That does not work. Maybe there is a placebo effect on a very select few women who are highly suggestible types, but I’m not one of them. The only remedy for overplucked brows is to pray that they grow back, but since I’m an atheist that doesn’t work for me. I’m considering agnostic: “Please God, I might believe in you if you would help me grow some irreverently sexy ‘Carine’ eyebrows.”

Anyway, in the event that your overplucked eyebrows do not grow back, you must do emergency damage control. The emergency damage control involves booking an eyebrow shaping appointment on Madison Avenue in New York City with the queen of eyebrow shaping, the one and only Ms. Eliza Petrescu. She will charge you an arm and a leg but if you are eyebrow deficient it will be worth every penny. She is charming and kind as well as talented. She will suggest you not pick up a tweezer and when you explain to her that your brows stopped growing years ago, she will gently nod and get on with her work. She will wax, then pluck. You will wonder if you will have anything left at the end. She will use an eyebrow pencil with the lightest touch. And when you look in the mirror, you will, like magic, have pretty, somehow thicker, fuller-looking eyebrows! Not quite “Carine” brows, but an improvement!

Words of wisdom: Step away. Step away from the tweezers! And pray.

No plucking image by Kellina de Boer. Carine Roitfeld photographs courtesy of guardian.co.uk, Fashion Spot, Getty Images.

Comments

[montse22]

it is a very wise one
my father always say me
Brows like Brooke Shields jajaja

Love

[Arabella]

according to Joan Crawford, mixing castor oil with vaseline and brushing it against the growth will grow them back. She was overplucked in the 20s and 30s and she got pretty bushy there by the 1950s. I haven't tried it yet.

[kellina]

Awwww, that's so cute, Montse! Your father is wise and wonderful.

[kellina]

Arabella, thank you for the tip! I had not heard this before but you chose a great example, Joan Crawford's eyebrows were pencil thin at one point so she clearly found a way to make them grow... If anyone out there tries it, please let us know how it goes (or grows, ba duh duhm...).

[Dress Code: High Fashion]

It`s an error to assume that every woman can pull off the bushy eyebrows look. This look depends on the natural brow shape / growth, the attitude / charm and overall level of confidence & sex-appeal.

French women, geniuses & 15-year old model-beauties get away with (almost) everything but most of us "normal" women just look ungroomed & primitive with bushy eyebrows.

I`ll keep on plucking!

Best Regards, Jenny

http://www.dresscodehighfashion.com/

[Tallgirl]

I have a great brow lady - and I live in Minneapolis. She put me on what I call "the program". And I also overplucked before (child of the 90's). It has literally taken 4 years for the inside to grow back, you just need to be ok with letting them grow in one at a time. I see my woman every 6 weeks, and I only tweeze below for major strays. Just stop tweezing, and only shape at top and bottom as appropriate. The way I found her was I saw a woman with clearly very heavy brows beautifully shaped, but still very full, and I asked for the name. Best $26 I spend every other month.

[madeleine gallay]

my 17 year old kid gets love tweets on his major brows ..

but carefully if you seriously have overplucked and with the permission of your kindly dermatoligist, Latisse carefully daubed on with a very fine eyeliner brush will thicken a beated down brow

[kellina]

You are right, Jenny, it is certainly not for everyone. But we wanted to give hope to those out there suffering with overplucked eyebrows, you CAN do it, just put down the tweezer...

;-)

I'm strange, I actually like the feeling of the tweezed hair leaving my body so that makes it extra hard to quit. Hope I am not oversharing...

LOL

[kellina]

"The Program"! Loving it! Tallgirl, you and your brow lady ROCK. Thank you for your testimony!

[kellina]

Madeleine, how big ARE his brows?

;-)

Thanks for the Latisse tip! Any dangerous side effects that we should consider? Such as "may cause blindness"?

[cupcake]

Hilarious as always! Carine does nothing? Nothing to her brows? It's a slipperly slope with those tweezers. Nothing ages a woman more than a circa 1980 pencil brow. Seriously though, she must pluck the odd stray, non?
Cupcake

[kellina]

True dat, Cupcake! "Nothing ages a woman more than a circa 1980 pencil brow." Dressing too young for her age is a close second... xo

[sisters in black frocks]

for some reason i've always felt that when you have big brows and light eyes it looks so beautiful, like carine, and brooke sheilds. but when you have dark thick brows and brown eyes it looks a bit too hairy. but then again i am a student of the 90's linda evangelista arch.
-erika

[Mike]

I have nothing to add to this conversation.

[kellina]

Erika, too funny!!!! Like I said to the mailman in the elevator today, whatever it is we have, we all want the opposite. Thin brows, thick brows, you name it, we want the opposite!

;-)

Thanks for your comment.

[kellina]

Oh but you DID though, Michael... I have tried to seduce you to the dark side of plucking before but you intuitively sense the danger at hand and run at the sight of tweezers...

[Cupcake]

'cept for Pam Anderson think u meant to say.

[kellina]

Oh Cupcake, I admire your ability to wreak humor wherever you go! Only eight and one half words but I am laughing so hard. Of course Pammy would be the exception, fashion powerhouse that she is.

[Goguma]

I love big brows..far better to underpluck than to overpluck

http://somefashionclout.blogspot.com

[kellina]

Oh yes, there's the mantra! Thank you, Goguma!

"far better to underpluck than to overpluck"

even without the pluck this is the truth, ""far better to under than to over" or as our icon Carine loves to say, "Less is more."

[noelani]

I vow to put the tweezers down. And maybe invest in some castor oil. I think we can make the case for a class action suit against Sassy though. I blame them fully.

[kellina]

Noelani, I think you could have a strong case! Damn Sassy!

[bernie]

i wonder if we could still see thick eyebrows and straight haired models to the pages of P.V

[hutch]

best advice a make-up artist for film gave me about eyebrows. If you have thin eyebrows use abit of waterproof mascara to thicken them up and then dab a bit of chapstick on them to make them glossy and thick.

[kellina]

I bet we do, Bernie, time will tell...

[kellina]

Interesting tip, thanks, hutch! JRR says she uses mascara on her brows as well.

;-)

[raissa]

Another Sassy reader here. Mine are growing back with the application of Latisse (marketed for lashes). Have also heard of good results with castor oil and, ahem, Rogaine.

[kellina]

Nice! Thanks for letting us know there is reason to hope out there, Raissa!

[Sarah]

I'm a child of the 90s but never resorted to tweezing because I hate the look of unnaturally thin brows... I, for one, think everyone looks better with thicker eyebrows (though some peope aren't naturally blessed with nicely shaped, thick brows).
It brings out the eyes and gives you an air of nonchalance.

[kellina]

Well done, Sarah! Well stated as well, Carine's nonchalant eyebrows are her calling card.