‘Open your eyes.’

I opened them, to see two intent faces peering into mine. It was like that shot in a hospital TV show, from the POV of the trolley*: the surgeons are huddled over a patient, a patient that they have maybe just zapped back to life, and they are ensuring said patient’s consciousness. I wasn’t in A&E, and the two intent faces belonged to eyebrow artists; despite the lack of cardio machines or whatever, this was something of a crisis situation, and it was about to be resolved. Categorically.

That brow, there, that’s what I brought before Marissa Carter and Katie Fox at Carter Beauty {the other brow, not pictured, is, you know, the same.} That’s a manageable brow for me. I can lay on the brow enhancer, like Benefit’s Browzings, or Clarins’ Pro Palette, and sculpt a decent shape, and take attention away from the stray hairs.

Why not tweeze those strays, you ask? Because I cannot bear the tweezers, as wielded by me. My nose is itching just thinking about it, and my eyes are tearing up. This reaction is why I have been getting my eyebrows tended to, by professionals, since I was 13 years old.

That’s a lot of years between then and now, and I can say with conviction that nothing has ever approached the shaping of my brows with the focus that the HD Brows system brought to the treatment table.

The procedure is delineated in seven steps: assessment of the client’s face shape in order to design a brow to suit; tinting to even out the colour of the hair; waxing; threading; tweezing; trimming; finishing {< which entails soothing lotion and application of colour to cover any pinkness of skin, but this was the least painful eyebrow treatment I’ve ever gotten, and there was barely any reaction.}

During the assessment part, Katie used a thread to get ratios of distances between my nose and the outside of my brows, between my pupil and what would hopefully be the arch I’d always pined for. She attended to the specificities of my face the way I imagine the people who cleaned the Sistine Chapel attended to its restoration, but with less scaffolding.

It’s not as though the guts of the above are not fairly typical to a brow shaping treatment, but in this case, I’ve never experienced such a comprehensive use of all of the elements. By this I mean, it wasn’t like, slap on the wax and rip out the hair, zip-zip. Or the scrinch-scrinch-scrinch of threading, boom, you’re done. I suppose it’s not like that because the seven steps don’t come in rote order — both Marissa and Katie went back and forth between the steps, waxing, tweezing, threading, re-checking the plumb lines, and yes, peering down at me until they were satisfied that they had crafted the perfect brow for me and my face.

Okay, you’ve gotta see this now:

Seriously, that is pretty amazing. I mean, that is exactly the brow that I always want to come out with, and never do. There it is, finally.

The tint is fairly intense, but as Marissa assured me, it’s two days to fade and be in tune with my tones. Look at that edge! Razor sharp, and yessssss: an arch!

I suppose this is where I trot all the names of the celebs who are advocates of the HD Brow, but come on, what does Katie Price and the Minogue sisters have on you and me? Yeah, okay, don’t answer that.

Look! at that arch. The process took an hour — a whole sixty minutes devoted to the creation of Sue Conley’s Perfect Eyebrows. ‘We’re just so thrilled to be using our newly learned ‘eyebrow design’ skills to make our clients happy,’ says Marissa. ‘Giving someone eyebrows they didn’t think they could have is very rewarding, and it’s sparked a real passion for brows in Carter Beauty. We can’t stop talking or tweeting about brows!’

Very importantly, if you are nothing like me and are such a fearless plucker that you have gone too far, HD Brows is ideal for shaping with a view to regrowth. For more before-and-after photos, including those of brows that have been brought back from the brink of excessive tweezer use, follow @CBBrowArtist for updates on all sorts of brow-ish miracles.

One more time, for the money:

Plus! The brow does not look fake! That is my eyebrow, only better.

If you’ve ever bemoaned the state of your brows, this is The Answer to all your problems. Oh, and don’t be like me and wait until you’re in the eyebrow version of Casualty** before you let a professional intervene. It’s not like they can’t pull you back from the brow abyss, but why take the chance?

Carter Beauty HD Brows is €50 for the initial treatment.
Carter Beauty is based at 40 Main Street, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.
For more information, see wwwcarterbeauty.ie or ring them on  01-210 3624.

*Gurney, in Amurrican.
**The Emergency room, ibid.