‘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.