Anyone know how to remove eyebrow dye? Asking for a friend…

Remember my Liam Gallagher eyebrows*? The ones I have to tweeze every single day in life, or small animals start setting up home in them? Did I also mention how pale they are? No? Well they are. My eyebrows – and their accompanying lashes – are so pale that if you ever seen me without my makeup you’d think I was bald. I think this might be why I related so much to Aisleyne from Big Brother. And why I never let anyone see me without my makeup…

Anyway, my eyelashes are pale, so I dye them. I do it myself, partly because beauticians make me cry, but mostly because I don’t trust them. This mistrust is a deep-seated one, going back to the very first time I ever had my lashes dyed. I was seventeen. My best friend Dawn was with me, and I was very excited at the prospect of no longer having to pile on layers of mascara just to look halfway normal. You think I’m kidding here, but when I was in university, my attatchment to my mascara was legendary. In the halls of residence where I lived, some hilarious japester would set off the fire alarm every few nights, normally at about 3am. Everyone else would just throw on a dressing gown and pile out into the grounds, but I’d always take an extra couple of minutes to slick on some mascara and dig out a pair of high heels. For this reason, we were in second year before any of my friends realised that I was actually a short-ass with no eyelashes. Oh, the humanity. Some of them still don’t know. (Oh no, wait…)

So, Dawn and I head to the beauticians and I excitedly lay myself down upon the table, like some kind of pale-lashed sacrifice. “Do you want me to just do your eyebrows, too?” she asked. “Sure!” I replied, even more excited. I lay back and prepared to have my life revolutionised. A few minutes later, I wandered back into the waiting room, with pale lashes and jet black eyebrows. “No one will notice,” Dawn told me unconvincingly, as I dragged her around Superdrug, desperately searching for some miracle “eyebrow dye remover” and trying to avoid the mirrors. Sure enough, next day at school I walked into registration and everyone fell about laughing. All week people were actually stopping me in the corridors to say, “Hey, are those real?” I wanted to kill myself.

(Incidentally, the same thing happened the one time I tried to dye my hair. My hair is red, so I tried to dye it… a darker shade of red. The dye only “took” at the roots, and was only visible if my hair parted, like, in the wind or something. “No one will notice!” predicted Dawn. “And even if they do, no one will say anything!” The next day, I took the train to Edinburgh to do some shopping. As I walked up the high street, in a strong wind, a man actually slowed down his car and rolled down the window, JUST SO he could shout, “Is that hair dyed?” at me. GOD.)

So, you can probably guess where this story’s going, can’t you? Yesterday morning I decided to dye my eyelashes. I slicked some dye on my brows, too, and then promptly forgot all about it. Result: red hair, black brows. WHEN WILL I LEARN?

This morning I don’t think they’re looking quite so dark. I still hate myself, though.

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