Brows

You know the ten minutes you spend every morning getting your brows even, and the way you check them again before you get out of the car? That is what this gets rid of. You wake up with them already done, and they are still done at the end of a swim, a gym class or a good cry at a wedding.

The finish is soft and powdery — the look of a brow pencil put on by somebody who is very good at brow pencil. Denser through the tail to give you a shape, faded right out at the front so there is no hard line and nothing that reads as drawn on.

It is the gentlest of the three brow techniques and it suits the widest range of skin, which is why it is what most women end up having.

What Alison does on the day

The first three-quarters of an hour is not the treatment at all — it is you and her working out the shape. She measures your face, draws the brows on in pencil, hands you a mirror, and changes whatever you want changed.

Say if something is not right. Say it three times if you need to. Women change their minds constantly at this stage and it is the whole reason the stage exists — it is the last easy moment to move anything.

Colour is matched at the same point, against your skin and your own hair in daylight, never picked off a card under a salon lamp. Then a numbing cream goes on and the work starts. Most women describe it as scratching or a light buzzing rather than pain, and a fair few fall asleep. You are lying down, and you are welcome to bring headphones.

The bit nobody warns you about

For the first few days they will look darker and sharper than the finished result. That is meant to happen. Around day five to seven they flake, and underneath they can look far too pale — that is meant to happen too.

Then, somewhere in the second week, you will be convinced the whole thing has failed. It has not. The colour is under a fresh layer of skin and it comes back over the following fortnight.

Alison tells you all of this before you leave, and gives it to you in writing, because knowing it in advance is the difference between a normal week and a week of panicking. Then at four to six weeks you come back, she perfects the shape and tops up anything that healed light, and that visit is already paid for.