<blockquote>The New York Times December 31, 2004 Friday Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section B; Column 2; Metropolitan Desk; Tough Guys, Shapely Eyebrows; Pg. 1 LENGTH: 1140 words HEADLINE: Truckers and Hard Hats Now Make Pretty Eyes at the Girls BYLINE: By ANDREW JACOBS
To tweeze or not to tweeze. Such was the question facing Nestor Reyes, a gruff-talking bus driver from the Bronx whose most prominent facial feature was the black band of hair that wriggled across his brow like some giant caterpillar. "Nothing wrong with a unibrow," he told himself. "Looks manly."
His girlfriend, Margie Sola, had other ideas on the matter. She thought he looked like the love child of Albert Einstein and Bert from "Sesame Street." "His face was a big mess," she said.
In the end, Ms. Sola won the battle of the brow, dragging her hirsute boyfriend to the local nail salon for a waxing session that was akin to surgery to separate conjoined twins. The procedure was painful, but Mr. Reyes emerged as a double-browed creature, and something of a dandy. After some initial ribbing, the guys at the bus depot started having their eyebrows shaped as well, and Mr. Reyes has moved on to more advanced levels of grooming: biweekly manicures, seaweed body wraps and a no-holds-barred depilation of his back and shoulders. "There ain't no shame in looking clean," said Mr. Reyes, who is 35 and works for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. "We're not in the Dark Ages anymore."
In a quiet revolution sweeping the blue-collar precincts of metropolitan New York, mechanics, firemen and construction workers -- most of them insistently heterosexual -- are unapologetically doting on their eyebrows. Inspired by "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and the well-coiffed rap artists on BET, cowed by tweezers-wielding girlfriends and goaded by wisecracking co-workers, they are plucking and waxing as never before. And they don't lie about it.
"Eyebrows were the last frontier," said Louis DeJesus, a hair stylist whose Bronx salon, International Nails and Beauty, started seeing an influx of men about two years ago. "Everyone's doing it now. And once a guy starts doing it, he gets addicted."
From the immigrant enclaves of Queens to the minimalls of Long Island, modest salons that once catered to women find themselves inundated by primping, preening men, most of them young working-class guys who tend to spend their weekends at dance clubs. Even the Gotti brothers, the ones with their own reality television show, have embraced a minimalist approach to facial hair.
Carol Cedeno, a manicurist at Tom's Scissorhands, a salon in Paterson, N.J., has seen the trend. "A lot of the guys used to be embarrassed, but now they just walk in and say it proudly: 'I want my eyebrows done,'" she said, noting that her salon offers a wax job for $5. "Sometimes their eyebrows end up looking more dainty than their girlfriends'."
When he first started tweezing last year, Al Bernal, a 31-year-old auto mechanic from Newark, said his friends called his sexuality into question. "They said I looked, you know, gay," said Mr. Bernal, whose style is maintained by his fiancee. "Of course, these days they do it, too, and they love it because they get a lot more attention from chicks."
Unintentionally adopting a look that got its start in gay clubs, Mr. Bernal and his friends -- who once aspired to the roughneck street thug look -- have also discovered the allure of the year-round tan, the shaved chest and the eye-catching clubbing outfit. Diamond studs are in. Flashy gold chains are out. Guys, without even a pause, call it "the pretty-boy look."
Robbie Wootton, the owner of Spirit, a Chelsea nightclub that caters to the bridge-and-tunnel set on Saturday nights, says the transformation has been stunning. "Never mind the eyebrows," he said. "These guys shave their whole bodies, even their arms. If you bump up against them in the early morning you can feel the stubble growing back. It's like rubbing sandpaper."
Indeed, the crowd at Spirit on a recent Saturday night was strikingly scrubbed and clean cut. Long hair was rare, and there was not a goatee, moustache or plunging sideburn in the house. Many men seemed to favor their short hair teased upward with gobs of pomade. Three cousins from West Paterson, N.J., Joe Anfibio, Nick Zummo and Lance Minnoia, proudly exemplified the new style, which they described as tough guy meets metrosexual. Eyebrows were meticulously thinned, shirts were generously unbuttoned and all three were tanned, shaved and well-scented by Jean Paul Gaultier. Asked whether they risked looking too, well, effete, Mr. Zummo, a 21-year-old court officer said: "I'm secure enough in my manhood. If anyone has a problem with it, let them come talk to me." As if on cue, Carrie Howland, a 24-year-old hairdresser with a wad of gum in her mouth, sidled over to Mr. Zummo, eager to share her thoughts. She was apparently very impressed. "You've got great hair and a great smile," she said, touching his brittle coiffure. "And you've got really nice eyebrows."
When approached, most guys freely admit their newfound interest in eyebrow tending. Tweezing versus waxing versus shaving with a straight-edge razor is discussed with the same ardor accorded professional baseball. "The problem with plucking is, the eye area can get swollen," explained John Pinto, a 19-year-old truck driver from Harrison, N.J., who said his style was inspired by the depilated look of David Beckham, the British soccer star. "I like my eyebrows thin, but not too thin." With brows reduced to a wispy squiggle, his friend Steve Solano clearly embraces a look that many drag performers might find familiar. "Yo, girls like my style," he said with the grin of a self-assured ladies' man.
The increasingly aggressive approach to facial grooming has provoked some consternation among traditionalists. Charles Coxe, the executive editor of Maxim, the men's magazine, used the term "mantropy" to describe what he calls the growing feminization of men. "Guys are losing everything that makes them manly," he said. "The unibrow is there for a reason. How are you going to keep that spot warm? Besides, that's your plumage. It's the equivalent of a bird's big red chest. Be proud of it."
Mr. Reyes, the bus driver, could not disagree more. He says he enjoys getting compliments at work, even from passengers, and he and his girlfriend are planning to visit a spa in the Caribbean next month. He said he was really eager to try a mud bath. "I've discovered the benefits of hydrating your skin," he explained.
On a recent trip to Puerto Rico, he noticed a more radical trend among his friends: tweeze jobs that result in a definitive arch, a la Joan Crawford. Mr. Reyes said he was initially dismayed by the look, but during a manicure at the International Hair and Beauty Salon last week, the repulsion seemed to be fading. "Yeah, that seems to be a big fad now," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not ready to arch them. It's too bold. But maybe by the summer I might be ready."
GRAPHIC: Photos:
David Boyd, above, admiring his look after an eyebrow-waxing session at Sephora in Times Square. And those pretty brows at top? They all belong to men, photographed at Spirit, a dance club on 27th Street in Manhattan. (Photographs by Robert Stolarik for The New York Times)(pg. B1)
Jonathan Martinez, 27, reclining at the Sephora salon in Times Square, has been having his eyebrows waxed regularly for three years. "Eyebrows were the last frontier" for men, said Louis DeJesus, a Bronx hair stylist. (Photo by Robert Stolarik for The New York Times)(pg. B6)</blockquote> -- Yoshie
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