Price Tag Cage Match: Tweezers
Confession: When I answered this question, I did not base my recommendation for buying “a good set of tweezers” (translation! expensive!) on personal experience. My tweezers are both ancient and total crap. I swiped them from my mom when I left for college and have used them ever since. That’s…really pretty lame of me. And I knew that every single bit of brow-plucking wisdom these days hypes the Tweezerman tweezers and goes on and on about what a difference a decent pair of tweezers can make. Seventeen says so! InStyle says so! Sephora says so!
And why would a store lie to a person? Right? So do as I say, not as I do. Over here. With my sucky, ouchy tweezers.
But I’ve also heard RAVES about the Tweezermans from readers and various real-life people who testify to the difference a tweezer upgrade can make. So I realized what we really needed was a Price Tag Cage Match: a pair of fancy-pants $20 tweezers versus the little old drugstore kind.
In the fancy-pants corner! The Tweezerman Slant Tweezer. In pink. Because…well, I’m just like that. Purchased at Sephora for $20, where I was kind of shocked to see other tweezers selling for forty damn dollars. At that price, they better tweeze your brows AND unload the dishwasher. My lands.
In the drugstore corner! The Revlon Deluxe Tweezer, Slant Tip. Purchased for the bank-breaking price of $2.49 at the grocery store. Revlon does make some “expert” tweezers for around $10 or $12 that are probably meant to be the real competition for Tweezermans, but I…uhh…couldn’t find them in time for this column.
So while the drugstore tweezers are already at a bit of a disadvantage, the expensive tweezers are too. I do not have crazy brows. My brows are very thin and easy to shape, simply because I don’t have any other options for shaping other than what they do naturally, unless I feel like coloring them back on with a marker. I also don’t have to pluck any facial hair, which means if there’s anyone who can get away with using dull, crappy tweezers for a decade, it’s me.
I am a wuss for the pain though, and it did seem like the Tweezermans made plucking slightly less painful and I was finished after just a few plucks. I didn’t see any difference in terms of accuracy though, and the Revlons pulled hairs out just as cleanly. (Both Tweezerman and Revlon offer lifetime sharpening as well.)
Then I handed the tweezers to Jason and asked for his opinion. He has the crazy coarse brows, and being a guy (translation! big fat baby!), I assumed he’d be the better judge of whether the Tweezermans really did hurt less.
It could have been the precious pink color that prejudiced him, but his exact words were: There’s no difference. It’s a load of shit. Then he said he actually preferred the narrower tip of the Revlons.
Well!
Things weren’t looking too good for the expensive tweezers. (Although I declare this column a massive success since I was able to get Jason to clean up his brows without having to be all harsh with the “Dude. Unibrow. Fix.” nagging I usually have to do.)
So then I performed the ultimate advice columnist sacrifice and decided to use the tweezers down…there. You know. A little waxless cleaning up? Am I the only one who does that?
(Don’t answer that.)
Anyway. Tweezermans: Good. Fast. Not too hurty.
Revlons: HOLY MOTHER OF GOD OUCHING HELL.
So what’s the conclusion? Well, it depends. If your brows do not require tons of maintenance beyond minor shaping and plucking, the expensive tweezers are sooo not necessary. Same goes for anyone who isn’t too bugged by pain. Stick with a basic slant-tip tweezer. Just keep them sharpened. (Even the Revlons were a HUGE improvement over my old dull tweezers.)
However, if you’ve got regular and major grooming to do, or really stubborn coarse hair, or want to use the tweezers on other parts of your body, go for the professional kind. If you’re still skeptical or on a tight budget, keep an eye out for Revlon’s Diamond Grip or Expert Tweezer. (Cagey, a definite Tweezerman fan, recommended the Diamond Grip as a good alternative in the comments.)
As for me, I’ll be using my pink Tweezermans anyway. Because I know for a fact I won’t have to share them with Jason, since they are obviously an affront to his manhood. Victory!
