THE POWER OF BROWS

Brow artist/permanent makeup artist, Emma Hendrick, shares her expertise. Why the brow-less trend did not gain traction and what clients want from their brows.

In 2016 models took to the runway for the Marc Jacobs fashion show rocking a “no brow look”. Celebs soon followed with their own spin on this no brow look. Most of these looks were created by brow bleaching, some celebs and trend setters opted for a softer sun-kissed lighter brow while others adopted a more extreme “no look brow”, including Madonna, Miley Cyrus and Kate Perry.

This trend did not stay around for too long and I think we know why!  We are obsessed with eyebrows: arched brows, flat brows, big brows, brushed up brows, we are a nation of obsessed brow lovers. Although, the eyebrow has many functional features, our concern is that they are aesthetically pleasing.

Fortunately, no matter what our brow problem may be there is a solution for it in this million-pound brow market, which is growing from strength to strength. Brow growth serums, brow gels, brow mascara, pencils to create hair strokes, brow stencil shapes, you name it, it’s out there! As an eyebrow artist I see this obsession on a daily basis with a broad range of clients.

The right eyebrow shape will frame and flatter the eyes, for example, a fuller brow can give a more youthful appearance (an anti-ageing secret), an arched brow can lift the brows making the eyes appear more open and wider. The wrong shape, however, can change your look entirely. An extremely thin brow is quite ageing and can add years. An over-exaggerated round shape can make you look shocked or surprised (this known as the “McDonald brow”) and a very big, dark over drawn brow (yes, the one often labelled the Scousebrow) can be mis-understood to mean that person is angry or even appear distracting for the wrong reason.

Well-structured brows that are more symmetrical in nature are pleasing to the human eye. This could be one of the reasons the “no brow look” doesn’t have staying power and why people will go to great lengths with their brows. This includes people who have lost their eyebrow hair due to illness or medication from alopecia to cancer.

As a permanent makeup artist I have been on this personal journey with many clients who come to me when they have lost their brow hair or are preparing themselves before they lose their brows. The client will explain to me during their consultation that the main concern after accepting everything else, is the fact they will feel “face-less” without brows.  They want to feel “normal, look normal”, not look tired or sick. This is terminology that is used repeatedly in the permanent makeup consultation, by male and female clients about how they feel.

For me, to be able to make someone physically feel that a treatment procedure, which allows me to tattoo individual hair stokes to mimic an eyebrow (permanent makeup), is aesthetically fitting is extremely rewarding.

Having the ability and skill of a brow artist/permanent makeup artist allows me to not only make someone physically look good by creating suitable eyebrows, I am also able to make them feel good, more confident, happier, more attractive, and sometimes, ‘normal’ (all clients words). Who would have thought those two little things above our eyes held so much power?

As a brow artist, this to me has been the biggest eye opener to the power of brows.

Emma Hendrick collaborated with us at our event at FACT in April and features in our upcoming documentary. She offered consultations and treatments to attendees. 

 

 

‘I’m never fully dressed without my brows!’

When I was younger I never knew eyebrows would be this important. In fact I don’t actually think they were. Ok, yes, maybe they had to be ‘tidied’ i.e plucked away at like there was no tomorrow but there was no such a thing as brows ’on fleek’, ‘powerbrows’, ‘scousebrows’ or a million and one pencils, pomades or powder products to use on them!

Notice, that they’re now referred to as brows not eyebrows too. Have we dropped the ‘eye’ from ‘eyebrow’ because they’re now freestanding, unique and equally as important as the eye in beauty terms? Interesting! We’ve become obsessed and in my opinion quite rightly so! In fact, maybe we should be calling them the iBrow because we’re like the Apple fans you see lining up at 5am to get the latest Apple product or iPhone version – we’re (im)patiently waiting for the next must have brow trend to burst on the scene and demand we’re ready to buy into the latest trend, ready to pluck, thread, wax, tint, draw, add glitter- anything to step up the ‘brow game’.

Now, from the iBrow to My Brow…To me, those two bold strips of hair above my eyes can often dictate how I feel, make me late for some occasions and are quite frankly far more important to me than most other facial features. You can keep your on trend lip fillers, your teeth whitening kits and jawline Botox… I’d much rather a ‘decent’ brow because truthfully, I never feel fully dressed without my brows. But… it is hard to keep up! Can we please decide on a ‘one-size-fits-all brow model’ and stick to it for longer than a few weeks?! Years of over plucking them between waxing meant I’ve had no choice but to reach for the brow powders, pencils, gels, stencils… the lot, you name it I’ve probably tried it! As soon as I managed to actually grow something (with the help of lots of Vaseline) that was a ‘real work of ARCH’… the arch went out and now I’m stuck back at square one with an overgrown tadpole look on my left brow and a bushy hedgerow with a few bald patches on my right brow… patiently waiting for this look to come in to fashion… anytime soon? And lastly, a note about the famous ‘Scousebrow’, despite all the bad press it and the women/men who sported it received, is more than just a fashion trend. It’s a place marker, a sign, a status, it was a unity between girls from one city that I don’t think any other city in the world has. But for me, the Scousebrow isn’t that thick, black, drawn on sharpie look and the image of the Desparate Scousewife that all the press and bloggers tend to focus on. It’s the eyebrows you see as you walk around Liverpool on real women in real life not reality stars and scripted characters. We should be noticing and appreciating the care and attention and money spent on beauty and fashion from women so proud of the city they’re from and live. We might be known for our football teams and our music but the Scousebrow also got us known and noticed, often in an unfair and negative way.

Holly Saron, Edge Hill University

On Fleek

If you watch our trailer, at the end Scousebird (she of the popular Scouse Bird Problems site and social media presence) says, “brows on fleek, girl”. The term “on fleek” has a particular association with eyebrows, so we thought we’d reflect on its origins a little and share our findings.

Writing in 2014, Olivia Muenter in Bustle has a useful guide to one possible source, the social media site, Vine, in 2003. While she asserts that it can be used to describe anything, “from makeup photos to selfies to a bacon sandwich”, she most strongly associates it with eyebrows. This is because it originated in the Peaches Monroee Vine account and was popularised by Ariana Grande and others in song, and, subsequently, has taken off on social media sites, such as Instagram, to describe great brow styling.

Researchers for the Merriam-Webster dictionary dug deeper into the origins and spoke to Peaches, who asserts that she said “on flick” in the video, but the sound quality meant that it sounded like “fleek”, so a mishearing led to the creation of a new word. Merriam Webster includes a table showing how the use of “on fleek” has rocketed in the last few years to become word of the year in 2015. Neal Whitman describes the wider usage as “semantic broadening”, where a word can stretch to other meanings. Whitman unpicks the flick/fleek connection and explains how “on flick” can be used to label a particular make-up technique, specifically the feline flick.

So, we would like to join the Merriam-Webster team in saying, “cheers to Peaches Monroee for introducing a term that was up to the task of identifying eyebrows done right”.

For those who like their definitions sung, check this out.