Those of you who came of age in the 1990s and early 2000s will recall (with varying degrees of post-traumatic stress) a time when it was oh-so-chic to tweeze one’s eyebrows into ultra-thin rainbows (which turned, with one foolhardy pluck, into no brows at all). Then the tide began to shift — most markedly in 2011, when Cara Delevingne hit the modeling scene. Her preternaturally robust brows became instant fetish objects, the epitomizers of our highbrow hopes. Since then, we’ve entered a brow renaissance, a time of microblading, tinting, RevitaBrow, Boy Brow and all manner of brow-embellishing (Cara-replicating) techniques and eyebrow shaping products.
Which brings us to the question: now that our brows have reached peak fullness, how do we style that luxurious hair so as to stand out from the rest of the follicle-ly blessed crowd? Makeup artists and Instagram #influencers pose various solutions.
Barbed Wire Brows
Makeup artist Athena Paginton suggests tapping clear gel onto your finger tips and parting your brows into zig-zags to create what she calls the “barbed wire” brow.
Feather Brows
Insta-beauty addicts didn’t realize the above post by Finnish makeup artist Stella Sironen was meant as a joke. Thus, the “feather brow” trend was born. To replicate the look, part your brows down the middle, using a glue stick (yes, you read that correctly) to hold hairs in place.
No Brows
Of shaving her brows off entirely, model Jazzelle Zanaughtti told Vogue: “I used to bleach them, but then it started bleaching my skin underneath, so I just said, ‘Fuck it,’ and shaved them off. It’s 10 times easier, looks better, and makeup goes on a lot smoother.” Sans eyebrows, an ultra-dewy lid look really pops.
Tiger Brows
A post shared by @athenapaginton on
Fairly self-explanatory, also from the mind of makeup artist Athena Paginton.
Brushed-Up Brows
Extremely wearable (and runway-approved), brushed-up brows require only clear eyebrow gel, an eyebrow or mascara wand and firm, upward strokes.
[ Next: Eyebrows Through the Ages ]
