Our eyes are apparently the window to our soul...which means we should have something excellent framing them, right?
Which is why I'm baffled that so many girls have jumped on board this crazy fashion trend and messed about with their eyebrows. WHY WOULD YOU SHAVE THEM OFF?!
Up until I was about 16, I didn't realise eyebrow specific make-up even existed; my Mum was adamant that I wouldn't pluck my eyebrows until they grew so thick, they prevented me from seeing. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at the situation, I started to resemble Ugly Betty and left her with little choice but to hand the tweezers over to somebody professional. Hurrah, I was able to see again!
Now, I'm reasonably happy with my eyebrows; despite an over-plucking disaster in the summer of 2011, I'm able to maintain them on a day-to-day basis quite well - God bless eyebrow combs! When I'm going 'out out', I tend to fill them in a bit with Benefit brow zings, only because I wear quite dark eye make-up and my natural eyebrows just don't cut it. But overall, I haven't really got any complaints about the weird hair that grows above my eyes.
However, looking at eyebrows throughout the years, it does make me wonder how we ever got to where we are now; girls are leaving the house looking like they used a Sharpie to draw their eyebrows on. Some girls don't have any. Other's have dyed their eyebrows so much, it looks as though two slugs have just decided to camp out on their face.
In the 1920's, it was the norm to have over-plucked, straight eyebrows. The thinner and straighter they were emphasised the look of worry on your face...and women had a lot to worry about during this decade (they were, however, given the right to vote!):
In the 1930's, the 'thin is in' look was still very much prominent. However, the difference between eyebrows in this decade and the 20's was the exaggerated height; women were permanently seen to look astonished:
Wahoo! By the time the 1940's had come around, women were slowly, but surely, embracing the more natural look. Tweezers were ditched and thicker eyebrows became the norm:
Marilyn Monroe took eyebrows to a new level in the 1950's, personally my favourite eyebrow decade, with a thicker brow but a deeper arch. Audrey Hepburn, a huge eyebrow crush of mine, is a huge inspiration for women across the world during this decade. I don't think eyebrows get better than this:
The 1960's is my favourite decade simply because of The Beatles, the fashion and the casual attitude to psychedelic drugs...however, when we throw the evolution of eyebrows into the mix, I wish we could just skip this decade altogether. It was here that women started to shave their eyebrows off, favouring instead to pencil them back in in relatively thick strokes:
Going back to the natural-ish look, the 1970's put the ridiculous trend of shaved eyebrows to a close. Women favoured natural styles instead, leaning particularly towards an eyebrow with a round ball at the beginning of the brow...not my favourite, so I'm glad we saw this out:
My second favourite eyebrow era and all I have to say is THANK GOD FOR BROOKE SHIELDS. The 1980's were home to heavy, yet bushy, eyebrows and women across the world are throwing away their eyebrow pencils and leaving their tweezers at the bottom of their make-up bags:
Ah, Madonna. There's a lot of things I love this woman for and eyebrows are just the start; still taking inspiration from the natural look above, the 1990's saw eyebrows become 'cleaner', allowing the face to be 'opened up':
As the 90's drew to a close, the 2000's saw eyebrows follow the natural shape but take inspiration from the thicker, fuller look of the 80's. The Spice Girls all had excellent eyebrows. Julia Roberts eyebrows are one of my favourite things on this Earth:
So, how is it possible that we went from the above to this?!?!?!:
It's not even funny anymore when you think about what the next generation are going to be doing to their eyebrows; we need positive eyebrow influences, not women who think 'Darkest Black' Magic Marker is their perfect shade of eyebrow pencil. I'd erect a statute in honour of the eyebrows belonging to Audrey Hepburn, Brooke Shields and Julia Roberts if it meant women these days would stop taking a razor to their face and shaving away their eyebrows...only to draw them back on. It doesn't make sense to me...why not spend your time reading a book or eating really, really good food?
What women do their eyebrows will always baffle me, which is why I'm signing this post off with some of my own eyebrow role models. If you're even thinking about shaving your eyebrows off, PLEASE look them up on Twitter, beg them to give you their eyebrow care regime and follow THAT through instead:
