It's really easy to overthink your brows—from the proper shape for your face to the vast market of products available , there are a lot of elements at play when you're trying to find your ideal arch. It's enough to make anyone—even this beauty editor—feel overwhelmed. Which is why it only makes sense to look to those with flawless eyebrows for guidance. Keep reading for the secrets that beautifully browed celebs, editors, and real women alike swear by to maintain their arches.
It sounds obvious, sure. But while you're growing your arches out, do you ever feel the need to pluck away strays? Did you hit a lull in growth around six months and think that's about as good as it's going to get?
It's not. In fact, a few Byrdie team members who have been growing out their brows for some time including yours truly found that they hit their real growth spurt a little after the one-year mark.
Give it time, use a growth serum to help speed things along, and try not to tweeze at all—it'll bode better for eventual shaping more on that in a minute.
I suggest that everyone goes to a person to have their brows shaped properly at least once, then you can maintain what they did. Plus, after you've spent all that time growing out your brows, a professional will know best how to enhance your natural arch for the most face-flattering shape. And tweeze sparingly, if at all. I know it sounds drastic, but in order to keep your brows bushy and full the way I like them it's the most important thing.
But for really errant strays and maintenance after shaping, tweezing is the way to go—not only is it the most precise, but waxing and threading can tug at your skin and inhibit growth. Not only the popular smile but the missing eye handles influence people around the world. This eyebrow was so difficult to be shaped naturally that many high-ranked actresses including jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich got their eyebrows shaved redrawn by black liner just above the sockets. Coming out of Hollywood, the stenciled on eyebrow is also considered to have a negative effect mostly because of its association with the heavy-line faced Cholas of the Californian Latina low-rider and gang scene.
Even though eyebrows culturally and historically had great influence there is a baleful approach to it. It is basically a condition called trichotillomania, it obliges people to pull, pluck or shave hair from different parts of the body. In Perez Hilton interviewed her asking the reason why she shaved off her eyebrows and she simply replied that they itched when they grew.
In cultures where hair is generally loathed it may be even easier to become addicted to it. My obsession with shaving eyebrows started once I created the perfect arch shape. Additionally, they would rub walnut oil on the eyebrows in an attempt to thwart hair growth, even performing this beauty practice on children. While transparent eyebrows had been popular in previous eras, at the start of the 18th century, a dark, full brow became most desired.
Over-plucking and the use of toxic lead-based cosmetics led to hair loss making it difficult for women to grow out their eyebrows. As early as , it became custom to trap mice and use their fur to form artificial brows as a solution for a lack of eyebrows.
Mice pelts were trimmed into a desired style of eyebrow and stuck to the forehead using an adhesive. After a few decades of minimal effects on the eyebrow world, film became a widespread form of entertainment in the '20s and '30s. The rise of the silver screen also brought the emergence of the movie star, and Hollywood's biggest celebrities of the time like Clara Bow, Jean Harlow, and Marlene Dietrich began to sway trends in fashion, cosmetics, and of course, eyebrows.
These leading ladies popularized the ultra-thin eyebrows by plucking or shaving off the hair, mimicking practices from Elizabethan times and Medieval Asia. It was common for women to put Vaseline on their eyebrows to create shine in an effort to draw attention.
The start of World War II in had a widespread effect on the planet in both big and small ways. War rations impacted beauty and fashion industry trends as women were needed in the workplace and had less time for grooming while men were at war. For this reason, women had less of a beauty routine and prized easy to upkeep styles which put an emphasis on low-maintenance, medium-to-thick eyebrows.
Movie stars of this time still held public attention with starlets like Audrey Hepburn , Lauren Bacall , and later, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor influencing trends with their dramatic arched brows. As the decade progressed and the war subsided, eyebrows became more prominent, well-groomed, and often paired with a lustrous cherry red lip. Though eyebrow trends followed Hollywood's influence, at the same time, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo notably wore her trademark unibrow with pride, and often used her style as a form of creative expression in her work.
The swinging '60s brought a range of experimental makeup trends to go along with the free-spirited fashion of the time. Italian actress Sophia Loren had the most storied brows of the period as she was known for adopting old traditions of shaving off the eyebrow entirely and penciling it back on in short strokes. Natural makeup was also a common look for women emulating the style of starlets like Lauren Hutton and Farah Fawcett , channeling the hippie look which rejected makeup all-together.
But according to the book, Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History , our contemporary obsession with the stenciled eyebrow can be traced to the s when a thin and more exaggerated brow came into fashion. Unfortunately the brow itself was so unattainable naturally, that several of the trendsetters, including several popular actresses at the time including Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich , shaved their eyebrows and repurposed them into thin, high arched swipes of black liner just above the sockets.
Outside of its Hollywood influence, the modern day thin, arched and stenciled-on eyebrow also has a notorious, less glamorous depending upon the lens in which we view it distinction, particularly among its association with the heavy-lined faced Cholas of the Californian Latina lowrider and gang scene.
Yet despite its historical usages there is still an element to eyebrow shaving there is a much more sinister side to browlessness particularly trichotillomania, which is a compulsory disorder, which compels people to pull, pluck or shave hair from their bodies. Probably the most prominent brows in contemporary American culture belong to Whoopi Goldberg, who ironically does not have them.
In a culture that abhors hair and see hairlessness as a sign of civility, it is easy to become addicted to tweezing. I know the obsession with shaving the brows started right after I achieved what could be classified as the perfect arch. Unfortunately when you reach the pinnacles of success anything afterwards just seem to fall short — and that included my eyebrows. So I plucked, tweezed, waxed and eventually shaved hoping that once again I could create that same eyebrow-magic.
It never happened.
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