Eyebrows? Who devotes this much time to thinking about eyebrows? Seriously, what the hell is wrong with these people?
“For women who overpluck, this season will be about growing your eyebrows back so that they have a natural arch that extends out and ends in a beautiful point,” said Pat McGrath, a makeup artist for Max Factor and CoverGirl and the creative director for Procter & Gamble Beauty.
Not that this hot new eyebrow trend is going to make your life easier. Au contraire!
To achieve the furry but tamed Hemingway eyebrow, Ms. McGrath suggested an appointment with a professional eyebrow groomer.
Ok, I admit to having had my eyebrows waxed once before a job interview, and they did look nice all neatened up. I have to keep thicker brows because of a scar in the middle of one eyebrow, so I guess that just makes me some kind of trendsetter (thanks, Paris and Milan, I always knew you guys looked up to me). However, I got it done by this woman down at the hair salon who also waxes legs and faces and dyes hair and perms it and all sorts of things. I highly doubt she would describe herself as a professional eyebrow groomer and I’d like to meet the person who can introduce themselves as one without being a little chagrined.
For those of yo who, like me, live in the hinterlands of Flyover Country and lack access to professional eyebrow groomers, you may follow these easy yet less adaquate steps at home:
For those who want to create fuller brows at home, she suggested a way to ensure that they look evenly shaped. Start by drawing over the straggly hairs you want to remove with a white eyeliner pencil to guarantee that the placement is right before tweezing them.
Next, to create fullness, use a brow pencil or brow powder that is two shades lighter than your natural eyebrow color to fill in between the hairs. The brow should look blended rather than drawn on, she said. Finally, use clear mascara or eyebrow gel to fluff hairs — push them up so they are almost vertical — and then brush them back down, fixing them into shape, she said.
Then bam! Grab a toaster strudel and out the door in plenty of time for work! Easy peasy!
For those with very sparse brows, some salons offer eyebrow extensions.
I’ll let you know when eyebrow extensions reach MiddleofNowhere, OH. At that point, reality will have no meaning and you are truely free.
Eyebrow extensions? Eyebrow extensions?!?! You said it all in the heading — for fuck’s sake!
Personally, I’ve achieved a fashionably furry look by not plucking my eyebrows for 30 years. Because it freaking hurts to pull eyebrow hairs out by the roots. Now, if genetics had dealt me a unibrow, I guess I would have sucked it up and gone the painful plucking route. Or maybe not. I am slovenly and proud of it.
I will admit to being a bit of a fan of eyebrow maintenence- I haven’t the slightest idea of why it bothers me when people have terribly messed up eyebrows, but it does, and often on the el, I get the urge to attack someone with tweezers, or just the opposite, wanting to put them back on- in the case of “surprised” looking or drawn on ones. It’s a neuroses of mine. I get the same way about the floating head look (with the face make-up making the face a different color than the neck.). I don’t have heavy eyebrows, but I have freakishly deepset eyes (ie: I tried using an eyelash curler once and couldn’t reach), so if I didn’t do a small amount of plucking, I’d look like a crazed neanderthal.
Why does every woman have to look like every other woman? Does this go back to junior high when we’d call our best friends to see what they were wearing that day? And EYEBROW EXTENSIONS? That is nuts.
I have to admit, though, I work with a doctor who could use an eyebrow groomer…his brows are so thick and long that he once braided them (I am NOT kidding) and then showed them off to everyone in the clinic, including our patients. Too weird for words.
well, it is kind of a fire hazard when they start flowing all over the carpet. makes it kind of hard to see, too.
um, that does happen to other people, right?
never mind.
I will not rest until I have achieved the Hemingway eyebrow.
I’ll be happy to donate my eyebrow largesse to those considering extensions. All in the name of charity, of course.
Fuck that, I’m selling mine.
For those of you who have brows, maybe you just don’t get it. But there are people who have lost all or most of there brows thru chemo, alopecia or just old age. You don’t think people look strange without eyebrows? To them, it’s not a joke and eyebrow extentions are a lifesaver (not literally). Try shaving yours off and see if you wouldn’t want them back asap.
No one here would deny a chemo patient her fake eyebrows anymore than we’d call a masectomy patient vain for having reconstructive implants.
This article was not about that, though. Thanks for playing.