As everyone knows (or should), proper grooming is necessary for a hot spot, well, as hot as South Beach.
With that thought in mind, I knew today would be the perfect day to pay a visit.
Located just blocks away from my new place, I passed by it when I first moved into the neighborhood, and based on name alone, assumed it was a laundromat. (But who knows? My buds just played a gig at a place called The Soap Box Laundro Lounge in North Carolina…apparently there’s a trend in clean-naming!)
Slope Suds is not a laundromat, or a music venue, or anything related to the two – what they are is a cute, friendly, and unpretentious hair and beauty salon that is creating ever-increasing cyber-buzz about the excellent brow-shaping skills found within.
Since I have a brow fetish, this, above them being within walking distance of my place, was added enticement!
I must now say that any before-heard accolades were a gross understatement and Elke, the makeup and brow artist at Slope Suds, is so so so much more.
Elke Von Freudenberg is a celebrity makeup artist and brow specialist who is so popular that she travels back and forth between clients in LA and NY — and makes house calls! Her set up is a little something like that of a surgeon – instruments, wax, tweezers, trimmers, and a variety of pencils, powders, and tints – and, much like a serious diagnostician, she will intricately study your every facial feature before so much as lifting her tweezers.
Elke studied me, and agreed with my own diagnosis – I had nice brows (they were afterall, worked on by some pretty notable names of late!), but I suffered the ailment of having a “good” brow and a “bad” brow, and this problem was making my face entirely uneven! Couple that with hairs not growing back at the same rate, and a badly-needed tinting, and …oh my… I was certainly in no shape to be hopping on a plane to South Beach. (Alas.)
Help was, thank god, before me.
In the space of a half hour, Elke trimmed, tweezed, and neated. (Next time, we’ll do a bit of sugaring as well!). She even did a little exfoliation – turns out that the best way to prime the brows for tweezing (and the patient not to get red bumps) is to ready the skin in the same way you would for a good tan!
Makes sense to me, but I never thought of it before. Elke has lots of great visions when it comes to brows – in fact, she coined The Model Eyebrow, which encompasses tons of great theory and concepts she uses on her clients, including: The secret to model eyebrows, is to never completely wax your eyebrow. Models know that eyebrow looks come and go, and if you wax only, you lose the ability to grow in your eyebrows at a later date should you want to change your look. The best technique is to just wax the hairs that are not needed and tweeze to define the shape of the eyebrow.
So, we shaped, we created …we evened out my uneven arch…and then Elke completed the look by applying the perfect level of tint. She has a unique approach where she applies the tint for five seconds, removes it, and reapplies, until you reach your perfect shade…too something I should have looked into prior to previous disasters.
The results…South Beach perfection. And then I got my hair done as well! Shall share more on that tomorrow…I have a suitcase to pack!
I hearby declare Slope Suds my new favorite salon, ever, and see even less reason to venture into “the city” for, well, anything. (I mean it this time.)
