Hair raising stuff

I had a bit of a treat today courtesy of Mr Plummy Mummy. Spa treatments at the O Spa within Austin Reed on Regent's Street. Out of a choice of treatments I went for back massage, express facial, express nail varnish on fingers and eyebrow shaping.
The back massage was painful. My back is full of knots. I used to go to the excellent osteopath on the Slade and it looks like I will need to return to be straightened out again.
The facial was heaven on earth. So relaxing and lovely smells of tea tree oil based products.
The nail varnish was pretty for about 10 minutes before I ruined it by being too impatient and leaving before it had fully dried.
Now like a lot of Asian ladies, I appear more hirsute than our fairer cousins as my dark hair shows more prominently. Blonder ladies can get away with having masses of facial hair without looking yeti like - but the darker haired among us have to be careful to avoid looking She-Devil like. I was also told by an unkind parent (mine, not someone else's) that I had eyebrows like ex-Chancelor Denis Healey.
There are range of ways of removing hair:

• Shaving - generally frowned upon for facial as the hair comes back thicker and stronger
• Sugaring it - pour thick treacle-like substance on offending hair and yank it out
• Depilatory creams - lather on, wait 10 mins (perfect for sipping on the G&T in between) then wash off. Wait too long and you end up with chemical burns and a weird smell that follows you around. Not sure I'd want this near my eyes
• Tweezer it out - my preferred method for eyebrows but definitely not for other bodily regions. It hurts.
• Wax - spread thick goop on then rip out offending hairs by attaching strips to goop and pulling quickly like hellfire. The brave part of me will venture down this route once in a while but not on my face!
• Laser treatments - star wars. I always wondered why Chewbacca or the Ewoks didn't opt for this.
• Threading - this is an amazing thing that I have never had done. It's an Eastern practice where loops of thread are wound around the eyebrow hair and then yanked in one go. My Asian cousins do it on themselves. I should get one of them to teach me. This also includes removing hair from top of the eyebrows which is again, something I don't do.

Anyway, today I learnt that eyebrow shaping involves wax and teeny bits of cloth. After the first one was done, I wanted to leave the building as it was so painful but having just had a massage, I was semi-dressed. Luckily apart from a slight residual throb, I now have very clean shaped eyebrows. Definitely not Denis Healey anymore. Well at least not for the next four weeks. :)
I'm going to have to find somewhere near here to have the eyebrows done again as I don't want to return to town. Too much walking to get from Bank Central Line to the DLR platform and much muttering under my breath meant the good work of the massage and facial quickly evaporated.