regularly pluck my eyebrows and shave my legs

Lauren has inspired me as she occasionally does. :) This morning, upon a routine pluck, I decided to go thinner with my brows than I have in a long time. They’re still arched to my favorite degree and they’re still strong enough to fit my face as they should (with the dark hair and deep eyes, yeah), but they’re much more feminine and I’m happier with them. :)

Now, onto the shaving of the legs. It’s so hard to make this a habit in the cold of February! Must work on it.

Well, my morning routine is still an on/off pursuit, but this is well ingrained so I’m going to give myself credit for accomplishing it. It’s too much a picture of who I want to be to get lax on it again. I love my slim and neat eyebrows, I love my soft and smooth legs. Done. :)

This has become fairly habitual now; once I decided to take care of myself and make parts of my day more ritualistic, it came pretty easily. I’ll keep it as a Thing until my whole morning routine feels completely solid and effortless, though.

This morning I plucked where I’d never dared pluck before. :) I never want to overpluck, and it’s a pain to stand there and do it for very long anyhow, so generally I’d do it bit by bit daily, but I’d crap out and let them grow wild again before I ever got this far. This time, I went pretty well all the way, and I really like it.

You know, I an attraction to (as with so many period things ;) those pencil-thin eyebrows that were fashionable for a while in the ‘30s. Like:

Mine are naturally pretty thick—and even in their natural state they’re not too bad, shape-wise, and I don’t get too many hairs outside the eyebrow line. It’s mostly that the color bothers me: too dark for my fair skin and red hair, and though my friends laugh at me, I swear they have a greenish tint to them! Eyebrow pencils just make me look sillier. So a thinner brow somehow mitigates this, and overall just looks nicer.

Anyway, I’ve been plucking steadily, a little more every day, and today really chopped into them… This is by far the thinnest they’ve ever been, at most half their natural size. The skin underneath those areas was awfully dry and flaky, so I put my heaviest moisturizer over them. Well, that was only meant to be a for-today thing, but I liked the look of that, too! It gave my brows some of that Old Hollywood definition without having to use a pencil.

What a lot of words to discuss one’s eyebrows! But if I’m willing to maintain them, I think I’ve found my perfect brow. ;)

Oh, right. I did add this to my list, didn’t I? The eyebrows, I’ve got covered. I tend to pluck stray hairs every day and do a quick shape-check on the weekends. The shaving, though, I neglect so easily, wanting those 10 minutes to spend elsewhere.

This is pure laziness and there’s no real need, is there?

I’m adopting this, and it goes to a few other things, too. Need to generally get into good habits — like I’m 8 and learning for the first time. Lawd I let myself go to seed when I have nowhere in particular to be!

After all the college agonizing, by the way, I realize I enjoy having shaved legs — soft and smooth and not so dry! — so that’s an every-other-day thing for me too, where in practice it has been once a month.

Eyebrows — mine need it about every other day, but if I could start to think of it when I’m doing my morning face routine I’ll just incorporate it as needed.

I realize I need a literal step-by-step routine, always the same, every day. Like, shower — face scrub — toner — comb hair stuff in — moisturizer — makeup — hairspray. It’s not so difficult, it takes ten minutes total, but if I don’t do it the same way every day it’s not going to get done well.

At night, face scrub, toner, moisture mask, night moisturizer, body lotion. You know.

Then I’d like to have one day a week — Sunday mornings seem ideal, if I’ll wake up early — to do all the extra stuff: file and paint nails, and maybe some nice things for myself… foot scrub, face mask, &c. Some of it will wait till I have money but yeah. Taking care of myself, feeling nice & girly, consistently.

I tend to pluck my eyebrows once every week and a half or so, but especially in the Winter, I get a bit lazy with the shaving of the legs.

Ideally, I’d like to shave every other day and pluck my eyebrows once per week. This doesn’t seem too difficult a task, honestly, and I definitely need to start taking serious care of myself in all matters of health, hygiene, and grooming.

Plus, I feel pretty when I’m properly groomed. :D