• Benefit

  454 W. Broadway, nr. Prince St.; 212-769-1111
  1301 Third Ave., nr. 75th St.; 212-288-4728

  Eyebrow upkeep can be a rather slapdash non-art, landing you right back on the street with cookie-cutter arches and a telltale strip of red skin. At the San Francisco–based cosmetics brand’s hyperfeminine flagship, brows get their proper due. The eight-station Brow Bar takes over the entire first floor, where brows are first “mapped” with a liner pencil from nose bridge to tip, to identify your natural arch. The careful process then involves gentle Satin Smooth wax, followed by fastidious tweezing to pluck errant strays. A basic shaping is $23—a bargain compared with many brow artistes’ $50 fee—but the specialty here includes ten-minute lash-and-­eyebrow tinting ($36). Brow shaping comes with a post-wax session by a staff makeup artist, who applies soothing lotion, accentuates the brow with light penciling, conceals redness and under-eye circles, and slicks on a lip gloss of your choice. Walk-ins are encouraged, and birthday girls or boys get a free brow wax.

From the 2012 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine