Brenda’s Unfortunate Record #33: Questions – The Golden Filter

Off the bat, if you’re not already thinking about it, AESTHETICIAN is a tricky word to pronounce. The number of times I’ve been caught out and stuck in a semi-stammer … AESTHET-T-T-T-T  … tongue bashing relentlessly against my front teeth… 
BEAUTICIAN is so much easier, but it’s never the first term which springs to mind, which is probably indicative of how I feel about it all.

There’s a salon at the end of my road. The woman who owns it lives a few doors down and is very friendly. We’ve been exchanging pleasantries for years now but I’ve never set foot in her shop. A few months ago we crossed paths in the alley behind the market. She told me I should come in for a treatment. Laden with shopping and thoughts elsewhere, this caught me off guard. I didn’t know what to say and as my mind raced around all the possible scenarios, I eventually came out with, ‘Oh yeah I’ve been meaning to get my upper-lip waxed …’ which instantly felt far too revealing and uncomfortable. Of all the things.

Unlike most of my friends, the beauty parlour is not an environment I’m at ease in. I had a brief stint in my 20s getting the bits done but when I realised I could pretty much achieve the same thing at home, I stopped regular appointments. Besides, keeping on top of a short, coloured haircut is high enough maintenance for me. I don’t need to add to the regime. 

But after our exchange, I did get to thinking. I mean, I’m all for supporting local businesses and I definitely have more of a tache than I’d like … but I’m not sure how I feel about asking my neighbour to tackle it … dunno … 

The one time I did try to do it myself, it ended in disaster. It was the night before a photoshoot and I managed to neatly strip off a layer of lip. The next morning I turned up on location all red and swollen. Thankfully the make-up artist was able to mask it with Eight Hour Cream, but it was sore for days and I thought, never again.

I might seem determined to kill off whatever I have of feminine mystique, but lemme add that unwanted facial hair is something even the sexiest of us ladies deals with. Take the rogue whisker – tweezers normally do the trick (I’m careful to never travel without), but when you don’t have the right tools, there’s nothing more irritating. 

I once found myself at a lack in Siberia. After spending a good hour walking up and down every central Omsk street, I started getting really annoyed. Never mind the fact everything’s written in Cyrillic, but they don’t do shopfronts and entrances are a story up. If you don’t know where to go, the only way to find anything is by trial and error. You climb up the steps (of which there are many), open the door and stick your nose in… oh look, it’s a chemist, or here’s a hair salon, ladies shoe store, supermarket etc etc … none of which sold ‘pinzers’, a word I learned pretty quick. It was only on my way back to the hotel that I stumbled across the tweezer stand. No joke, tucked away in an underpass beneath one of the more chaotic intersections i’ve opted not to cross, they were all the lady sold. She must have had over 200 models – a real orgy of choice, name your shape, colour and size. It just goes to show what an important instrument it is. 

So going back my neighbour and whether or not I should brave it, I wouldn’t know about the PINZER STAND in Omsk if I was a regular patron of the aesthetician, would I? I can spend all day wracking my brain over such QUESTIONS but ultimately, it’s not gonna change the fact I never considered a manicure as an easy way out and that maybe, I’m just not that AESTHET-T-T-T-type of girl.