Unibrow for the Working Class

Story by story, bit by bit, those effete elitists at the Times are dismantling the myth of the working man. “Tough Guys, Shapely Eyebrows”:

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 fiancée. “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.”