How to lose half an eyebrow

Have you ever gone out for a beer only to return home eyebrowless? Well, that happened to me. Sorta. "Eyebrowless" is an exaggeration, but it makes for a better story. Truth is, I left the bar with a partial. (Might as well have taken the whole thing!)

So here's the story:

One night we visited a local bar near our hotel in Japan for a nightcap after a long day of walking. The bar was dimly lit and filled with a haze of cigarette smoke. The two bartenders - probably in their twenties - one guy and one girl gladly served us drinks and offered us "mixed nuts" and rice. We enjoyed our time there and stayed until closing. On our last night in Tokyo, we decided to end our trip at that bar since it was a slice of real local flavor. We walked in and the young man bartender greeted us with a friendly smile. The gal was in a booth with one of her girlfriends, giving her friend a makeover. They were giggling and oohing and aahing and I couldn't help but watch. The bartender girl saw me look and I said "beautiful!". A few minutes later, she came over to me and asked "do you want try?" I said "sure!" so happy that she wanted to be my friend.

I excitedly sat down at the booth awaiting my make-over. This girl was very pretty and so was her friend with a freshly made-up face. She looked great so I figured I had nothing to lose. The girl started with an eye brow pencil and soon after I heard a buzzing noise. I figured she was just buzzing off some stray brows which was doing me a favor so I didn't move a muscle. More penciling, more buzzing, and then she was done. I looked at myself in the mirror and although there was a bit too much penciling, it looked fine and I wanted to be gracious so I said I loved it! Onto the next eye. More penciling, more buzzing..then she stopped and asked, "shave?" Frightened by the word "SHAVE" in reference to my eyebrow, I said "no no, thats ok, it looks great how you did it already" So she finished up with the pencil and giddily chatted with her girlfriend about the job. She said "my friend says you look beautiful now". So I take a peek in the mirror and to my horror, half of my left eyebrow is missing and is replaced by a man-made eyebrow! And even worse, only ONE eyebrow is partially shaved, the other is perfectly intact! Beautiful?! How about insane?! I looked insane. There was pencil where no pencil should go and one brow was just a stub! Oh dear.

But I didn't say a peep. I just smiled and told her I loved it and thanked her for the job well done! Who would have ever thought I'd get my eyebrow shaved off by a bartender in a little bar in the heart of Tokyo. It made for a pretty good laugh.

Japanese brows

American brows

This picture doesn't do it justice. In fact it actually makes my brows look KINDA good. But, in person and up close you could really see all the pencil and lack of hair. EDIT: I've added a picture of my normal (pencil-less) brows for comparison since my photo sucks. Thanks for the idea Rach!

My brow is recovering wonderfully and has started to grow back in - you can hardly notice that the little brow tail was ever gone.