It’s a known fact that well shaped, cared for eyebrows are important. A good set of eyebrows is instrumental in framing your face and enhancing your eyes.

After a truly horrifying experience with my eyebrows three years ago, where they were reduced to small, misshapen caterpillars, I vowed to steer well clear of other’s ‘helping hands’ on my brows. But given that September is all about the exotic and daring, it was decided that I would bravely venture outside my comfort zone and road test eyebrow threading. Taking one for the team, I gladly booked myself into East Day Spa, all so that I can give guys a rundown on the slightly unusual way of keeping your brows kempt.

East Day Spa is a gorgeous haven in the middle of Auckland’s CBD and offers an array of tantalising services. Fortunately for me they are also one of the more well known and respected threading professionals around. Ina (of East Day Spa) and I sat down, in the luxurious relaxation room and discussed the practice of threading over some Vanilla Tea and then it was down to business, just me, my brows, my threader …and a bit of thread.

Firstly, what is threading? Ina and I had a bit of a laugh over how you would describe the process and concluded that while the results are outstanding, the procedure itself isn’t the most glamorous!

So how do you describe it? “Well it’s a form of hair removal with a piece of cotton. We twist the cotton and take each individual hair out from the root, but it just sounds horrible! It just doesn’t have that X-factor like a massage with lovely long strokes, and rippling. But that’s essentially what it is, it’s really really fast and you get an incredibly defined shape.”

You’re not limited to just your eyebrows either. Most threaders offer a full face option which incorporates brows, chin and upper lip (reported to be the most painful). Ina also mentioned that in some countries like Vietnam and Korea they actually do whole leg threads! I decided to just stick to the eyebrows!

Threading began in China. remember in the old days when the men had the shaped beards? They used threading to achieve them. From China it went through South East Asia to India and Pakistan. The Arabic countries are big on threading as well and the latest is that it’s THE thing in California.

Where can you get your eyebrows threaded? Threading isn’t just available from beauty salons, many women offer the service out of their homes and advertise locally. In terms of selecting your threader, Ina highlights the importance of cleanliness.

“You can go and eat fish and chips for $5 or you can go to Shed 5 and pay $35, the choice is entirely yours. But at a salon/spa the ambience is professional and afterwards you get the lovely eye gel and massage, it’s the whole experience that you’re paying for, rather than in a shoddy room with the floor covered in thread and powder and hair with forty eyes watching you getting your mo done.”

In regards to the pain threshold? “Same as waxing and slightly more on the upper lip. With the wax you’re only taking surface hair off but with the threading you’re getting those tiny, fine ones, it gets everything off.” Good news on the frequency front. Like most hair removal it depends on your hair and how quick it grows, but Ina says that the more you thread, the less you need it. And how does it compare to other methods out there?

“I think it’s the best, because we’re talking about all the fine hairs, the shape, the definition and it doesn’t lift the skin like wax does, it takes each individual hair from the root.”

My verdict: It was a weird sensation when each line of hair was pulled up and definitely a bit different from your average beauty treatment. I won’t lie - there was some pain involved but it was definitely bearable. It was more than made up for by the accompanying face massage and comments I got afterwards on the shape of my brows. Go on, embrace the exotic and give threading a try!

Cost: $15 Location: East Day Spa

NB: Given the intricacies and near impossibility of taking my own photo whilst having my eyebrows threaded, Ina volunteered to be our threading model.

Tee Twyford