The thing I hate most about air travel. Other than the “fear of death” thing, obviously.

Tweezerman_tweezers See these? These are my Tweezerman Point Tweezers. (Well, I mean clearly they’re not MY Tweezerman Point Tweezers, because this is just a generic picture of a set of said tweezers. But you know what I mean.) Pretty lethal looking, aren’t they? I mean, I can totally see why they wouldn’t allow those bad boys into the cabin of an aircraft. Totally.

Here’s the thing though: my eyebrows? They meet in the middle. Oh yes they do. Now, not a lot of people know that < /Michael Caine > (Or actually, wait: they kinda do now, don’t they?) because I have been tweezing my brows religiously since I was a teenager. Before that, I used to beg my parents to do it for me. They were all, "What do you want for Christmas, Amber?" and I’d be like, "For my eyebrows not to meet above my nose any more, thanks Santa!"

This eyebrow tweezing is a routine that I have to go through every day in life. I tweeze my eyebrows last thing at night, and if I ever missed a night, by the time I woke up next morning I’d be looking like the missing link. I’m not even joking here. Tweezing is a bit of a drag, but it’s one of those chores that I just can’t afford to skip – and to illustrate how very serious I am about this, I have made my mother promise that if I’m ever hit by a bus or something and end up in a coma/incapacitated in some other way, that she will visit me in hospital every day and TWEEZE MY DAMN EYEBROWS ALREADY.

The tweezers are one of the items I’d take with me to a desert island, and like I said, I never miss a day – other than when I travel long haul. Because long haul flights tend to involve getting up very early and not getting to where you’re going until very late. And tweezers are no longer allowed to accompany you into the cabin. Not even if you beg and grovel and promise not to use them to wrest the controls of the aircraft from its unwitting pilot.

Now, I understand why this is, and let me just say, I totally support the "No Tweezers in the Cabin" thing. I, after all, am the world’s most nervous flyer, and Terry still has the bruises on his hands from our trip to the Canaries last April to prove it. So I’d much rather be red hairy than dead, one of the victims of a terrifying mid-air scenario involving a crazed lunatic and a pair of pink tweezers. (Because yes, mine are pink. Obviously.)

But it still sucks, and I’ll tell you for why: because about halfway across the Atlantic next Monday, I will suddenly become aware of a nasty, prickly feeling around the general area of my eyebrows. This sensation is entirely imaginary. It’s my brains way of saying, "HELLOOO! HANDS! Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, Hands! Forget something, ya think? Like, maybe something involving making The Face look human again? Better take care of that, or I will continue to make the eyebrows feel odd, and a little bit prickly: almost as if you can feel the fresh hairs starting to poke their way through the skin. I will do this until you’re almost ready to rip them out yourselves, Hands, without even needing to resort to the tweezers. Just letting you know. OK, bye, gotta go freak Her out by suggesting that the noise she just heard from the engines may mean that we’re about to fall from the sky in a fiery ball. Laters, Hands!"

This is why being without my tweezers is the second third worst thing about flying for me. (No 2 is that kid that’s always in the seat behind me, kicking like Jackie Chan.) And why my tweezers would be one of the things I’d take with me to that desert island – assuming that they let them on the plane, of course.

So, tell me, what would you take? What’s your desert island item?

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books by Amber Eve
COMMENTS
  • Rachel

    REPLY

    I love my pink Tweezerman Tweezers and LOVE plucking (that's really not a nice word) my eyebrows. I have a lovely little habit of brushing a finger against the hair to see if I have any new ones coming. It's so relaxing.
    Oh, and my husband rates them to so now we have a pair each. They, along with SPF lip balm would have to be on my Island list.

    May 27, 2008
  • I thought tweezers were back on the approved list? I think you should take a healthy dose of a sleeping pill to make you forget all about it. Or lots and lots of cocktails. 🙂

    May 28, 2008
  • Phred

    REPLY

    You could find yourself a nice pair of Teflon tweezers. They make them for scientific purposes.

    May 28, 2008
  • Tweezers. I would take tweezers and a toothbrush. And actually, maybe a razor, because I can't stand to have hair under my arms.

    But I'm totally with you on the tweezers thing. Many a time I have spent in front of the mirror, turning different ways in the light to make sure that I got every single stray. And if I run my fingers between my brows and can feel anything, I must remedy the situation immediately, or it will drive me crazy.

    May 28, 2008
  • I'm interested that you use the point tweezers, I've always gone for the slant variety… I have some Tweezerman slant pink ones, and some travel ones, also slanted. Is pointed better? They do look lethal…

    May 29, 2008
  • A tin of vaseline. It goes EVERYWHERE with me – I have about 15 tins and they live by the bed, by the sofa, in the kitchen drawer, in the bathroom, in my handbags (note the plural), in my overnight bags, in my desk at work, on my compuer stand at work… basically everywhere. I NEED it!

    May 29, 2008
  • Caroline, I'm just the same! Gots to have my Vaseline. People used to mock me about it at school, in fact…

    May 29, 2008
  • Is the vaseline for your lips, Caroline and Diane? I also love it, but mostly use it on my eyelids when I'm putting on mascara to stop it getting everywhere. For lips, my must-have is Carmex – love it!

    Diane – I had the slant tweezers too, and they're the onces I use most, but the point ones are really great for getting as those little tiny, hard to reach hairs. You might not need them, though, unless you're also secretly a Yeti, like me 🙂 The problem with the point tweezers, though, is that I can guarantee that I'll drop them on the pointy bits within a few weeks of buying them, which blunts the ends and renders them useless. Tweezerman actually re-sharpen them for free but meh, think I'll just hit up Sephora for a new pair. I'm thinking maybe zebra print this time…

    May 29, 2008
  • It is for my lips, but also for a hundred other things. It's for softening the dead skin that is the result of a nasty habit for biting the skin around my nails. It's for the soles of my feet and any dead skin I get on my toes. It's for creating a barrier between the open soreness of blisters and any of that germilicious dirt flying around in the air. It's for slathering over my feet and hands and then covering with a pair of socks before I go to sleep at night so that I wake up with silky-smooth extremities! It is the only thing I have ever found that will successfully remove my eye make-up without making my eyes swell up into red puffy peepers . And it sooths my eyes when they're suffering from hayfever/too-much-staring-at-a-computer-screen-itis.

    There are a million and one uses for the stuff!

    Maybe I should start demanding commission!

    May 30, 2008
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