Tweezer Whiz - Chicago Reader · missing are a pot of wax bubbling on a burner and thin strips of...

20 CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 4, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Our Town

Mack, who began it with a casualprofessional interest, went native:talking about Lewis and Clark’s jour-ney he displays an expansive, geekyknowledge of the trek, focusing moreon the esoteric details of it than hisown. “It was a great project and Iwish it was still going on,” he says.

In some ways, it is: Mack hadhoped to photograph the famousWhite Cliffs of the upper Missouriby canoe, but the trip fell through.Instead he flew over the cliffs in afriend’s plane, shooting theirbleached, jagged profile from above. The photos are crisp andstriking; they’re in the book. Butnext summer—in his off time, over a year after the book’s publication—he’s planning to return, to shootfrom the river, surrounded by thesame craggy cliffs that shadowedLewis and Clark. v

The Beautiful Life

Tweezer WhizRashida B. has somestrong opinions about your eyebrows.By Tasneem Paghdiwala

T he tiny bride-to-be sitting inRashida Balogun’s high-backedchair is in trouble and she

knows it. She waits with her eyesshut, hands folded tightly in her lap,one kitten heel tapping against thechair leg. Rashida frowns into herupturned face and then, obviouslyirritated, turns to wipe rubbing alco-hol over her tweezers and scissors.

The young woman started comingto Rashida’s salon, a one-womanoperation on the top floor of a WickerPark loft building, every few weekswhen it opened in the spring to gether brows in shape before her wed-ding. She’d heard that the B Spot wasthe only salon in Chicago that spe-cialized in brows and lashes, whichtickled her bride-to-be sensibilities.She was late this Saturday morning,and Saturday is Rashida’s tightestday, with back-to-back appointmentsfrom eight to noon. Luckily the 10:40showed up early, so the two appoint-ments were simply swapped. Rashidacould’ve forgiven and forgotten, butshe noticed something else: thebride-to-be had been at her brows.

“You went in. I can tell,” Rashidasays sternly, her tweezers poised in theair above the woman’s temple. Sheuses instruments by a Swiss companycalled Rubis that’s been around since1922, when it designed tweezers forwatchmakers who needed to manipu-late minuscule jewels and gears.

A set of thin brushes stands in avase on the corner of her table, nextto a hand mirror and some tubes thatlook like oil paints. Conspicuouslymissing are a pot of wax bubbling ona burner and thin strips of muslin.Rashida refuses to use wax. This islike going in for a checkup and thedoctor telling you he doesn’t believein stethoscopes. Waxing is derigueur: you go somewhere to getyour brows waxed because you can’ttrust yourself to do it right. Rashidaonly tweezes—and what’s more, shecharges $45 to do it. That’s triplewhat most places charge for anymethod. I’m watching her worktoday to find out what she does thatthe 50 or so other women (and twomen) who have waxed, plucked,threaded, and trimmed my own eye-brows in the past didn’t.

Over the course of the morningshe’ll repeat her mantra, “Waxing isevil,” seven times. “All the beautymagazines say the skin around theeye is the most delicate on thebody—don’t pull at it, pat moisturiz-er on with your little finger,” shesays. “Turn the page and they’retelling you to put burning hot waxthere and rrrip it off! Keep waxinglong enough and the eyelid loses itsstructure and droops.

“You want precision, a subtle arch,not the same generic shape on everyface walking down the street,” she

continues. “How are you gonna get aprecise line with a blob of wax?”

The clients like to hear the phi-losophy behind Rashida’s unortho-dox method. Some of them tell methey ended up in her care afteryears of nomadic wandering fromone salon to another. They havestories about going home from abad waxing experience with burnmarks around their eyelids or cry-ing in the rearview mirror at anoverly dramatic arch when all theyasked for was a simple cleanup job.“The ‘angry woman’ arch,” Rashidasays with a nod.

As Rashida tweezes, incense burns

in one corner and low bass-heavymusic drifts from another. The salonis huge—it takes up the entire thirdfloor at 1471 N. Milwaukee. Widewindows run all the way up thechocolate-colored walls. It’s a mostlyempty room; there are two over-stuffed brown suede settees, a lowdark-wood cabinet stocked withwine, Rashida’s worktable and chair,and then foot after foot of dark,glossy hardwood. A little crate byone of the settees holds a stack ofbeauty magazines and a coffee-tablebook called The Eyebrow, whichincludes a photographic history ofBette Davis’s eyebrows. They start

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[snip] “Neither the Ten Commandments nor the teachings of Jesus seem to command any morepractical adherence in America than in Europe,” writes Australian commentator John Quiggin on theblog Crooked Timber, even though many more Americans than Europeans profess to be religious. “The(apparent) unimportance of religious belief for social outcomes was one of the great surprises of the 20thcentury, although, like most negative results, its significance is not fully appreciated. In the 18th and 19thcenturies, nearly everyone thought that religious belief made a big difference, for good or ill.” —HH

What Are You Wearing?

M in Song, 23, works atHejfina, paints commis-

sioned animal portraits, and wasrecently asked to design a T-shirtfor Brighton Park Press.

Your outfit is kind of opulent—thevelveteen minidress and pumpsare both trimmed in gold. Is feel-ing luxe when you get dressedimportant to you?It’s kind of funny. . . honestly thesethings come from secondhandstores. It’s more about workingwith what you have monetarilyand not looking like everyone else.

How do you feel when somethingyou love becomes the currenttrend and everybody’s wearing it? I feel cheated. It’s really mind-bog-gling to realize people aren’t awareof things until Vogue trots it out.This past season, everybody yousee is wearing these big old-ladynecklaces. They were always outthere—why must everyone do thesame thing all at once?

What contemporary designers do you like?I love Dries Van Noten—though

the new collection is a little safe—and Junya Watanabe. HusseinChalayan is pretty amazing. Ooh,and Viktor & Rolf. BenoîtMéléard—he makes these shoeswith white soles and tiny little kit-ten heels and giant circularshapes. They’re great, but proba-bly not very wearable. But I likethat rebellious spirit.

Rebellious against what?Against the general public’s ideaof fashion, and against the bigger,more established lines. I don’teven like Marc Jacobs. His stuff isall totally ripped off, without put-ting any of his own ideas into it,and that’s offensive. It’s cute,but . . . where’s that gonna get youreally? He’s always looking for thenext muse for a celebrity photog-rapher. The ads are so bad . . . Iwould never want to be in thoseads, or an American Apparel ad.

What do you think of those ads’emphasis on the “exotic” woman?It seems like such an old idea.You’d think people would havemoved past that. But I don’t take itall that personally. —Kim Soss

Rebel RebelMin Song

SO

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Rashida B. of the B Spot (top)

A. J

ACKS

ON

says that when a new client comesto her after a bad experience else-where she often sends them awaywith instructions to not touch any-thing and an appointment for fouror five weeks down the road. For thebrow to return to its virgin shapewould take a full year, she says,unless the follicles have beenharassed to the point where theywon’t bother to grow.

The bride-to-be wilts. Her wed-ding is in two weeks. “I tell them not to touch anything if they don’tknow what they’re doing,” Rashidasays with a shrug. Her tweezers startto flash around the woman’s eyes.She starts with the flat-edged set totake out the baby-fine hairs alongthe top ridge and between thebrows, then picks up a long-nosed,pointed set and removes a few thick-er hairs from the brow proper. Shespends more time along the raggedbottom edge of the right brow, andfinally uses a dark brown powder tosubtly shore up the line.

The young woman hops down andwrites a check, still making excuses:surprise visit by the future in-laws,couldn’t go to dinner with browslooking like that. Rashida tells her tomake a late-night emergencyappointment next time instead of

CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 4, 2005 | SECTION ONE 21

out lively and relatively thick butend up anemic and wispy afterdecades of overgrooming. JoanCrawford goes the opposite way—she flaunts her signature boxy, tight-ly controlled brows into her 50s andthen neglects them, allowing themto grow every which way.

Rashida rented the space afterdoing brows for a year at Sole NailLounge & Salon, a storefront acrossthe street. She hated the loudmusic, and that anyone walkingtheir dog outside could look in thewindow and see who was gettingwhat done. The B Spot doesn’t evenhave a sign on the door that leadsup from the street. Among her morethan 200 regulars she says shecounts beauty editors, restaura-teurs, fashion designers, and 25men who particularly appreciate thediscreet location.

Rashida got her own brows donefor the first time in high school, theday of senior prom. She was gettinga manicure in a downtown Chicagosalon when a lady walked in withstriking, bold, arched brows—the“perfect diva arch,” she says. A hair-dresser asked where the lady wentfor her brows, and Rashida leanedin for the answer. “I headed straightto the same place after my haircut,to this cute little Polish woman

named Margaret at JosephMichael’s—who waxed, but sheknew what she was doing,” she says.She thought the grooming made herface brighter and more open. Herfriends noticed, and Rashida fig-ured out how to do their brows justlike hers. After a long detour as anaccountant for an insurance compa-ny, she enrolled in a makeup artistryprogram at Columbia College. (“Myparents are from Nigeria,” sheexplains. “Nigerian parents don’twant you to go to beauty school.They want you to get a degree insomething real, like finance.”) Shelearned how to fix everything fromsplit ends to broken nails, but knewshe’d do only eyebrows once she gother certification.

“You can’t change any other part ofyour face so easily, or so dramatical-ly,” she says. “I think it’s like mathe-matics. Lines and angles. Take awoman that no one ever noticed anddo her brows right, suddenly you

can’t help it—you’re looking at hereyes, you’re looking at her lips. Butmost women never pay any attentionto their own brows.”

The bride-to-be sinks into thechair under Rashida’s exacting gaze.She didn’t touch anything impor-tant, she protests, just a couplehairs closer to the eye that werebothering her between appoint-ments. Rashida laughs sharply. Sheruns a fingertip along the bottom ofthe right eyebrow. “You touchedthem right here. This one is toothin.” I see what she means. Thebottom edge is ragged and thebrows look asymmetrical, makingthe whole face seem off somehow.“Little bitty features need a strongerbrow, you know I always say this,”Rashida admonishes softly.

The young woman leans forwardto squint into the big gilt-edgedmirror on the wall. Her eyes widenin panic. I ask how long it will takefor the hairs to grow back. Rashida

[snip] Department of Understatement. From theNewScientist.com newsletter: “It’s pretty alarmingthat today’s cargo scanners cannot distinguishbetween a plutonium bomb and the radioactivepotassium-40 found naturally in bananas.” —HH

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B Spot1471 N. Milwaukee866-275-9166

The bride-to-be sinks into the chair underRashida’s exacting gaze. She didn’t touch anything important, she protests, just a couple hairs closer to the eye that werebothering her between appointments.

22 CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 4, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Our Town

touching them herself. I forget toask exactly how much such anappointment would cost—I’m dis-tracted by the young woman’s face.She has small ruby lips, a delicatenose, and a clear, wide forehead thatI had overlooked. Rashida and Iwatch her march across the hard-wood floor and out the door, her lit-tle purse clutched at her waist, andthe sun from the high windowsfalling on her hair and shoulders. Ithink we’re thinking the same thing:she looks like a bride. v

Ambitions

Hoedown at the HardRock CafeWho wants to be onNashville Star?By Miles Raymer

A t 10 AM last Saturday, whenthe Hard Rock Cafe opened,the line to get in stretched

down the block on Ontario and a lit-tle ways around the corner. A lot ofthem were wearing cowboy hats. TheUSA Network’s fourth season ofNashville Star is casting, and theChicago audition notices hadbrought out dozens of people lookingto become country music superstars.

Nashville Star is like AmericanIdol for country singers, but themachinery is a little different. Forone, contestants can accompanythemselves on an instrument, so asthe hopefuls filed into the Hard Rocksome of them started breaking outguitars and tuning up. That and thenumber of Budweisers being servedat the bar lit up the place with a kind

of hootenanny vibe. Also, there’s noSimon Cowell—and had there beenone here, I’m sure he would’ve hadhis ass soundly whupped by the endof the day. Auditions were simple:around 30 seconds of a song sung infront of a camera and a room full offriends, relatives, and competitorswho applauded after every perform-ance, extra loud if the singer reallykilled. The judge was a guy in a Devoshirt who called everyone with amauled pronunciation of his or her

name and ended every audition witha simple “thank you.”

There’s no upper age limit for thecontestants on Nashville Star, so agood number of wannabes had spous-es and/or children in tow. A coupleadded vocal flourishes and hand ges-tures to their performances, likethey’d spent enough time onstage tobe comfortable with that sort of thing,but most had little or no real experi-ence. Matt Mackling, who grew up inthe midwest but lives in Craig, Alaska,

flew in from a visit to his family inSioux City, spurred by his sister’s urg-ing and a few local karaoke champi-onships. He looked like a scrubbyJason Mraz in a faux-vintage T-shirtand a trucker hat. “I could’ve got alldressed up, but I wouldn’t have beenas comfortable,” he told me. “I’m notinto the whole boots thing.”

Competitors can choose from 50songs for their audition, but the listcould easily be shortened to 10. Thelyrics to Patty Loveless’s “Think AboutElvis” are among the worst words everset to music, but it takes 30 or so ren-ditions of the first verse (“I try to thinkabout Elvis / Memphis / Oprah in theafternoon / I try to think about palmtrees / Fig leaves / The Creature Fromthe Black Lagoon”) to comprehendthem at the level I do now. A short,stocky, goateed man in a cowboy hatwho sang George Strait’s “Amarillo by Morning” was followed directly by another short, stocky, goateed manin a cowboy hat who sang GeorgeStrait’s “Amarillo by Morning.” Thesecond one sang it a little sadder anda little better. I wanted to interviewthe guy afterward, but I couldn’t tellwhich one was him.

If I had to pick a favorite for theday it would have to be LauraMackley. She’s 18 and from Joliet,skinny with long, dark hair. I inter-rupted her rehearsing on an acousticto ask her if she’d ever performed foran audience before. “Oh yeah,” shesaid confidently. “At church all thetime. And in the living room for family.” Her guitar strap had a cross screen-printed on it. When her turn came she did an odd andhaunting rendition of Dolly Parton’s“Jolene.” After she was announced as one of a group of contestants who would come back for anotherround the next day, I talked to Lauraagain. I asked her if the older, moreexperienced woman who’d sung“Jolene” just a couple of minutesbefore her had made her nervous.She told me no, then added, “And noone’s done it since.” v

[snip] “Let’s not make a religion of civil liberties,” writes Judge Richard Posner in a vigorous onlinedebate with University of Chicago colleague Geoffrey Stone at legalaffairs.org. “My family survived itsbrush with McCarthyism quite nicely, as did most of McCarthy’s victims.... Life without the self-incrimina-tion clause, without the Miranda warnings, without the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule, with anunamended USA PATRIOT Act, with a depiction of the Ten Commandments on the ceiling of the SupremeCourt, even life without Roe v. Wade, would still, in my opinion anyway, be eminently worth living.” —HH

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At the Hard Rock last Saturday

JIM

NEW

BERR

Y

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