Eyebrow Game

Sure, the eyebrow fashions of the decades are recognizable-- the thin brows of the 1920s and 30s, the more natural brows of the 40s, and the thick, dark, sharply arched brows of the 1950s and 60s, but can you recognize an actress by her brows? Let's find out.

How'd you do? Pretty well, I bet!

 You see, eyes and their corresponding brows are incredibly distinctive.

 In fact, when we take away brows entirely, a famous face becomes almost unrecognizable.

Audrey Hepburn without her signature brows via People with No Eyebrows

To tell you the truth, I had no idea what Audrey's nose looked like, but without brows, my eyes are drawn to that part of her face. 

Here's a more contemporary example:

Lana Del Rey with and without brows via Celebs with No Brows

Without brows, Lana's face looks wider and, somehow, more masculine to me. Also, her eyeliner looks incredibly out of place and she looks just plain scary (as do most people without brows).

After considering these beauties, browless or otherwise, I can see why I hold such a fixation with eyebrows--- they're incredibly important.

At some point in time during my development, perhaps about the time I started shaving my legs (middle school), I began to notice the well groomed brows of my peers and of older women. My best friend at the time, who had two older sisters, shaved parts of her very dark brows, which resulted in odd, unnaturally shaped brows and garnered a bit of teasing from girls who plucked their brows or had them waxed.

Lacking older sisters, and as the daughter of a woman who plucked her brows to oblivion in the 1970s, I was pretty clueless as to what should be done to create and maintain "good" eyebrows.

Mom's senior picture, 1978. Her eyebrows never recovered.

Little me was pretty certain that should she pick up a pair of tweezers, she'd end up like her mother.

 Eventually I did tweeze, which evolved into waxing, light plucking and, later on, dyeing and filling. (Oh how I wish I knew about filling in one's brows when I was still wearing a ton of black eyeliner, how much better that would have looked. Yes, I grew up under a rock!)

Though I continued to admire brows, I was pretty satisfied with grooming habits and brow shape for years, until my brows thinned thanks to my under-active thyroid. During the worst of it, I could go two or three months between waxing, with little plucking needed; not only were my brows not growing, the hair was falling out, too!

October of 2009: my 40s style brows. June of 2013: my hypothyroid brows and swollen face.

As my brows diminished, my brow fixation returned, fueled by the hashtag "eyebrow game strong" on Instagram. 

As my brows slowly grow back, I'm contemplating their shape and care. Although I know I will never have lush brows a la Lauren Bacall, I've decided to go thicker for the first time in my brow journey. 

 Recently I invested in Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade, as I've always been better with a brush than a pencil. While I'm not sure I've yet hit my stride with the product, or if thicker brows are really for me, I'm enjoying experimenting and trying to find that look that may define the next few years of my brow journey,

So, what era of brow shape do you prefer? Which set of famous brows do you find most appealing above? And lastly, just how do you keep your brow game strong? Tell me tales of your brow journey!