The first time I got my eyebrows waxed, I was 12 or 13. This seems crazy to me, but I mention it by way of establishing my credentials. I know that this nothing, nowadays, when girls much younger are getting waxed in places that don’t bear thinking about, or even younger girls getting spray tans for their First Holy Communion — but it still strike as kinda young. So anyway, that little bit of personal information is given so you know that I’ve been around the block, several times, and am a good judge of services that concern the removal of excess hair on the brow.

As for threading, I’ve only had five instances, but they all had defining characteristics:

1} My first time, and the lady took so much off the ends of my brows they have barely grown back — two years later.

2} This time, it felt like the lady was pulling out the hairs one by one with her teeth.

3} My sister took me to the place she goes in the strip mall in North Brunswick, NJ. It cost $3, which is roughly €2.24. When I was waved to a seat, my sister winced, because she knew the threading ladies, and this one liked to take her time, possibly in sadistic fashion. The lady ran the thread through my brows like an arpeggio — a slow, slooooow arpeggio.

4} I will be writing about this in future, because it was good one, and an option for southsiders: Shavata in Harvey Nicks, Dundrum.

5} This was the best one, though: Neelu at Arnotts.

I tell Neelu my Number One story and she proceeds to recount some harrowing tales of people who come to her after their own personal brow apocalypses. ‘People take their brows for granted,’ I say, and she agrees, and goes on to assure me that the most important thing about them is that we need to cultivate the shapes that we’ve been born with.

‘People are stuck on what all the magazines say, and they come in and think that threading is going to give them thick eyebrows. Everybody says to me, ‘I want them thick,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, you don’t have it.’ When she asks me how I would like my brows, I immediately respond by saying I would like them thick… but in the place that they are already thick! I don’t want to make something out of nothing! Thick has always been the problem, which is why I was getting waxed at 13! Regardless, I feel like a shockin’ eejit.

I also want an arch, a fancy arch like I see in those magazines, and Neelu very gently informs me that I don’t have one, that arches don’t occur naturally in the way my hair grows. I am sad. She could make one, but she absolutely insists upon bringing out the best of what you’ve got, and not forcing unnatural looks on her clients.

Straightforward and warm, Neelu has been in business for over 25 years. Qualified in the former Galligan Beauty College, she was the fore-runner of threading in Dublin, and continues to introduce techniques that bring out her clients natural beauty, non-invasively. After having established a threading bar in Arnotts, the demand for all of her services increased, and the amount of offerings are fairly dazzling: facials that suit the most pressing problems one could have, hair reduction, full mani/pedi service {with a massage chair! That has a footbath! This is the real deal!} microdermabrasion, semi-permanent make-up…

Neelu begins to thread, and while waxing is a ‘big tense up until the rip’, threading is a series of little ping-ping-pings, and I’m not sure which is the least painful, mentally. In Neelu’s hands, the procedure is swift and while I get the usually itchy nose, the first brow goes so quickly I can’t even believe it.

I should, of course, have taken a ‘before’ picture, but the ‘after’ is worth a look:

I feel so tidy! After Neelu defines them with some mineral powder, I feel like these are the best brows I’ve ever had. The technique is the technique, but it’s the application of it, and the inherent approach, that make the difference between a treatment that gets the job done, and one that actually gives you the best ‘you’ you can get. This seems self-evident, but how many services have you ‘enjoyed’ that have been less than flattering? I don’t even want to go there.

Neelu explains it best, in her own words: ‘I think threading is an art. You must have an eye for looking at the face — no two eyebrows are the same, we all know that no two sides of the face are equal. I am always reading the face to see the expressions. This is a big piece of what I do here.’

Neelu at Arnotts: for more information ring, 01 805 0400 ext. 207 or go to neelus-salon.com