Of the oddly satisfying things in life, having a taut silk thread glide across my stratum corneum is way up there. It’s one of the steps in aesthetician Pietro Simone’s signature facial, which I experienced a few weeks ago. Simone is certainly not the first to incorporate fine threads in a beauty treatment. Brow threading is a centuries-old, still-popular form of hair removal whose roots — pardon the pun — originated in Iran, India, Central Asia, and China. In Simone’s case, however, he’s not targeting recalcitrant brow hairs but the dead, dry skin cells on my face that prevent it from living its best, glowiest life.