Threading. What is it and why I'll never go back to waxing

Eyebrows. They've been through a lot in my lifetime alone. The collective eyebrows of 25-35-year-old women have been plucked, tweezed, waxed, primped, coloured, brushed, grown, tattooed and according to some out-there Instagram posts, styled into all kinds of other unnatural shapes.\

It's easy to see why we love preening our eyebrows. Eyebrows, by their very nature, help to frame the face. Done well, eyebrows can accentuate the shape and colour of your eyes and cheeks and help to make you look youthful (and some may even say a bit more fertile). If done wrong, they can leave you continually looking surprised, worried or just a bit 'blah'.

Before rushing off to the bathroom to get out your 5x mirror and examine every folicle, here is some first-hand advice from someone who has tried it all. After years of waxing and tweezing and even a small stint of 'going bush' and letting my brows do their own thing, the method I keep coming back to (and recommending to everyone who asks, and sometimes those who don't...) is eyebrow threading.

Nowadays, I pay a visit to a lovely Indian lady once every few weeks. For a few dollars, she employs a technique called threading, which helps me maintain a full but well-groomed and well-shaped brow. Threading is a popular beauty technique across India and the broader Asia region.

Eyebrow threading is so popular because its both a cost-effective and gentle way to manage the hair that frames your whole face. Cheaper than microblading, and involving no hot wax or painful tweezers, threading is a quick and easy solution, with appointments taking no more than 15 minutes from start to finish.

So, how does threading work? Your threading specialist will loop a piece of cotton thread in on itself and then cross it over. One end of the thread rests in an open hand, while the opposite end sits in a closed fist. When the specilaists hands alternate between open and shut the section of cotton in the middle that crosses over moves back and forward, creating friction. Here is where the magic happens! Those pesky eyebrow hairs that catch between the moving threads are quickly plucked, taking away the hair and its follicle. This technique is done row by row so that no hairs get missed in the process.

Since the thread is only attaching itself to the hairs in your eyebrow, the sensitive skin on your face is left well alone. This is a godsend for me because my skin is pretty sensitive and prone to redness. Without the heat and skin pulling that goes along with waxing, threading also hurts a whole lot less. That's not to say it doesn't hurt at all though. Having any hair ripped from your body is going to cause some amount of pain. There is also a bit of irritation and some redness to be expected, only because you're stimulating your eyebrow areas.

In my experience, the most painful part of threading comes from the tiny hairs that linger around your brow area but are too hard to tweeze, and too light to wax. Removing those hairs makes for really well defined and tidy lines when your brows are threaded. Getting rid of all those hairs in one go also means they'll grow back at around the same rate. That means fewer stray hairs that need your attention between appointments. Bonus!

You'll find that threading is similar to waxing in that it requires a regular schedule of maintainece, although it's not too hard. For most people, you'll need to book in your eyebrow threading every two to four weeks. The more often you thread your brows, the weaker your hair follicles will become, and the less hair will grow back over time.

So, do yourself a favour the next time you look at your eyebrows and wrinkle your nose. Visit your local eyebrow threading specialist and get the frame to your face sorted in no time.