As the doors of CVS Pharmacy swooshed open, I became a girl on a mission.
I needed to find false eyelashes to replace my bare right eyelid. My only experience in the past with false eyelashes was when I wore them for beauty pageants and dance recitals. Because of using them often, I became very good at applying them quickly and neatly.
Things were a little different this time, though. I had no lashes for the glue to stick to!
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It all started when I looked in the mirror and noticed that my eyebrows were starting to look rather Godzilla-like. I hadn’t had them waxed in at least three weeks, and thanks to my Cuban genes, they grow super fast. My first eyebrow wax was at age 10! If I don’t keep them maintained I begin to look a little like Frida Kahlo, which is not exactly an attractive look for a young college student.
I called up my hair salon, Today’s Trends, only to learn that my favorite eyebrow specialist, Laurie, was on vacation for the week.
“Sorry dear,” the receptionist told me. “I could fit you in with one of the other girls if you’d like?”
No! This was unacceptable. The only person I allowed to touch my eyebrows was Laurie. She knew the exact arch I liked, and knew not to pluck too many hairs from the end of the brow.
“That’s okay. I’ll just figure something else out,” I said, dejected, to the receptionist.
I went back to the mirror and stared a little more.
‘Maybe I could just do a little plucking?’ I thought to myself.
Plucking didn’t work.
I remembered my mom telling me about a salon that opened down the street from my house. She said our neighbor went to get a haircut, and it was a nice, clean place.
I got into my car and drove down to the salon. The sketchy shopping center should have been my first clue that things weren’t about to go well.
I walked in, and a little bell rang on top of the door.
“Well, hello darling!” the receptionist said in a deep southern drawl. “You need a cut or some color today, pretty thing?”
She seemed overexcited. The salon was empty, and each station was carefully arranged, as if they hadn’t had any business all day.
“Um no, I’m actually here for a brow wax. Do you guys have a specialist?”
She laughed.
“An eyebrow specialist!? No, honey. But we have Diana, and she does fabulous wax jobs! She’ll wax anything, from your hairline to your cooter.”
‘Did this woman just say
cooter?’ I thought to myself.
“Well…great. I just need my eyebrows done, then,” I said, a little scared by how overzealous the receptionist was acting.
I sat in the waiting area for about ten minutes when Diana finally stepped out of the back and up front to meet me.
She wore a pink half-shirt and light jeans. Her bleached-blonde hair was waist-length, and her breasts were propped up right under her clavicle. She wore heavy black eyeliner and neon green eye shadow.
Diana looked like a Barbie doll on crack.
“Hi, dear,” she said to me. “Why don’t you come on back and make yourself comfortable?” she motioned to me.
I walked into the waxing room and Diana shut the door behind us.
“Up on the table, honey! I’m sure you’ve done this before,” she urged.
I lifted myself onto the waxing table, laid down and shut my eyes. I felt Dianna spread the hot wax across my left eyebrow. It felt a little hotter than usual, but I made myself feel better by telling myself that different salons keep their wax at different temperatures.
She put the waxing strip on my brow and began smoothing it down. Without counting to three or warning me, she violently ripped the hairs from my eyebrow. It hurt, but I was used to the pain. Remember, I had been doing this for years.
‘So far, so good,’ I thought.
Diana moved onto my right eye.
She must have put too much wax onto the wooden stick, because a quarter-sized amount of it fell directly onto my eyelashes. I didn’t feel it at first, but when Diana gasped, I gasped.
“Oh, no! Hmm…well. I can fix this honey, don’t you worry a bit!”
I reached up and felt the hot wax on my eyelashes. I couldn’t open my eye.
Diana put some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball, and rubbed it on my eye.
Instead of the wax coming off, the alcohol went directly into my eye.
“Oh my fucking God!” I shouted, my eye stinging and burning from the hot wax at the same time.
“Did I get it in your eye? Oh my…I’m so sorry! I’m just gonna have to try to get it off.”
Before I could say anything, Diana placed the waxing strip down onto my eyelid and pulled.
The ripping sound it made I’ll never forget.
I reached up to my eye, and instead of feeling mascara-lengthened lashes, I felt nothing. I shot up off the table and ran to the first mirror I could find.
And then I screamed.
Being self conscious is something that all teenagers deal with, but not many have to worry about their eyelashes being waxed off at a sketchy salon!
Diana was apologizing profusely, but I didn’t hear a word. I walked out of the waxing room and to the front of the salon.
“I am NOT paying for this,” I told the receptionist, and I ran out the door.
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I pulled haphazardly into a parking space at CVS, and jumped out of my car and into the store. The doors opened quickly, and I turned to the left, where the cosmetics were kept.
I found the aisle of hair dyes and cotton balls, mirrors and false eyelashes. I picked up the first box I found – Ardell #301: Accent Lashes.
Three boxes seemed like enough, so I carried them in my arms to the front counter. The check out girl looked at what I was buying, and then at my flushed face. She didn’t say anything, but could tell that I was really embarrassed by the fact that I was lacking a set of eyelashes!
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I sat in front of my lighted mirror at home and put on the false lashes every day before school. Because I had no lashes to glue them onto, I had to use the very bottom of my eyelid. I looked like I had a lazy eye, and to make matters worse, Diana never ended up waxing my right eyebrow.
I looked real cute.
This experience taught me that sometimes shit happens, and there is nothing you can do about it. There are worse things in the world than missing eyelashes, but to a teenager it’s the end of the world. It was so naïve of me to think that I had it so bad, when really, I was just being dramatic. Of course not having eyelashes was no picnic, but there are people in the world without arms and legs, for goodness sake! I wouldn’t say that I was being selfish, I just didn’t realize at the time that maybe I should focus less on my little problems and look at the big picture.
I feel like if this incident were to happen to me today, I would handle it differently. I’d look on the bright side: saving money on mascara until my lashes grew back was a slight perk.
