A recent article on the Sunday Times Style proclaimed Skinny Jeans Begone. As skinny jeans disappear from the fashion shelves and my daughter drowns in flappy wide denims, now the threat of the skinny brow works in reverse and has made a reappearance - modelled by style setter Zendaye.
The search terms ‘skinny brows’ ‘thin brows’ and ‘90s brow’ peaked this time last year, with celebrities such as Bella Hadid and Doja Cat resurging the trend. #ThinBrows gained 195M views on TikTok. Zendaye further revived the skinny theme on the Met Gala Red Carpet, with throw back to a 20's flapper girl.
Maybe fun for an evening but there is a price to pay. Growing up as a skinny child with seemingly more brows than body, I was intrigued by friends who were the converse, curvaceous but with self-inflicted, thinner brows. The notion of full eyebrows seemed cultural, as my mother forbade me to touch mine. Beauty references were Bollywood actresses who had thick ebony hair, sealed with a sheen of gloss and perfectly balanced brows. It was simply sacrilegious to play with parameters of that shape, thickness or length.
As I tipped into my late teens, Kate Moss came along; her lithe figure was reflected in her deliberately super skinny brows, which looked undeniably sexy. The pencil strips rose into a perfect arch and gradually tailed off towards her temples accentuating her, already pronounced, cheekbones. Soon everyone was plucking furiously to mimic Kate and other celebrities like Gwen Stefani and Cameron Diaz stretching the trend across the pond. The glamour of the 20’s and the waif like icons of the noughties began to merge and as a vulnerable teenager, whilst tempted, it would have been seen as an act of defiance by my mother.
And so, fortunately, my brows remained intact. In fact, it was so ingrained in me and so absent in friends, that I decided to address the gap in women’s brows and in the British market. In 2004, I launched Blink, my mission being to restore brows to their fullness and more importantly give women the confidence back, that they had lost when pluck happy in the 90s.
We nursed brows as diligently as we could by showing customers how, with patience, they could grow them back to fullness. When at home, it is then easy to lose sight of shape and go beyond the the core, removing hairs that are vital to balancing facial features. Almost like taking botox a step too far because you can’t remember the original you. Stencils are a great way to map your brows and preserve that core shape. Remember, length, thickness and shape are all crucial in the balancing act of brow perfection.
Looking for a home remedy to complement our services, I created a formula to encourage growth and restoration. The Nourishing Brow Oil was the first of its kind to consider the health of the brows. It combined Rosemary (known to cure alopecia) with Organic Almond Oil. The organic was important to be kinder to the skin, the Almond was to add protein to hair and the oil to lubricate. The additional Lavender and Sandalwood help to heal and calm the skin. Brow Boost is super sonic version, loaded with active ingredients wrapped into Rovisome Biotin to deliver a potent growth formula to your brows. Use this daily for six weeks and barely there will be there.
We know that we often look back and wonder why we were wearing boot leg cut jeans or Juicy Couture towelling clingy jogging pants until they revolve all the way round the clothing rail again and our children are are rummaging in our attic. Whilst we can save our clothes for a rainy day, we can’t save our brows. To this day, whenever I meet women for the first time, they raise their hands in panic, draw their hair forward and proclaim ‘don’t look at my brows’. I want to delete the ‘don’t’. Brows are unforgiving if over plucked and so we repeat the mantra – don’t overpluck.
My universal plea is don’t treat your brows like a fashion item. If you want to follow trends use clever tricks of makeup. BBB Ultra Slim Brow Definer will pack in the brows so that they look denser, filling in the smallest of hairs with the micro nib. Brow stencils can be very helpful in guiding the boundaries of the brow shape to achieve a look. A slick of Clear Brow Gloss will then sweep and slick them together. Concealer to hid hair can also be effective in giving the appearance of skinny.
We all know that there will be a new phase around the corner and so let’s preserve our brows and like hair, use product to style and express our fashion statements. I am delighted to say that #ThickerEyebrows currently stands at 221.8M views on TikTok with fluffy, brushed up brows dominating. Amen to that.
