For the past decade, full, thick brows have been considered the North Star of beauty, regardless of age or face shape. Deeply influenced by millennial models and reality TV stars (from Cara Delevingne to the Kardashians), the brow industry has thrived on this crowd-pleasing beauty staple. But since the influence of Generation Z has taken over the beauty agenda – their nostalgia for the ’90s and ’20s has fueled the collective trend – thin brows are back in the spotlight. Now, it seems we’re all ready to raise our brows again.
Laurretta Power, national brow artist and artistic director of Benefit Cosmetics, confirms the growing popularity of the look. “People are starting to favor thinner brows, which is very frustrating for all those who are seeing the trend for the first time and having terrible trouble trying to get them to grow back.” She also cites the zeitgeist: “Generation Z is obsessed with the movies, music and fashion of the ’90s and ’20s, and makeup has gone crazy on TikTok for decades”-and in real life, too. Take the success of this year’s Pam & Tommy, the queen of extremely thin brows, a Hulu collection starring Lily James as Pamela Anderson. Not surprisingly, this is the Halloween costume of the year, and its influence permeates reality. All of this, coupled with the fact that 20-something pop culture influencers – like Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Alexa Demi and Nicola Peltz Beckham – have streamlined eyebrows, makes this revival unsurprising.
It’s not just anecdotal, either. A study by e-tailer LookFantastic analyzed various metrics such as social engagement and Google search volume to determine the major beauty trends of the last year and found that fine eyebrows were the third most popular trend (behind the equally nostalgic brown lip liner with gloss and heavy black eyeliner), with a 450% increase in searches for the look. It was only a matter of time before we shifted our interest from offline to everyday life.
Terry Barber, MAC’s director of makeup artistry, sees this as a classic example of how the counterculture is starting to snowball. The beauty visionary and trend authority tells Bazaar, “The return of the skinny brow could be another way that beauty is trying to move away from the generic, stenciled details that have become so prevalent in the last decade, when it seemed like only one brow shape could be meant to fit everyone.” “Instagram brows” (remember #eyebrowsonfleek?) , if you will.
The return of skinny brows is another way that beauty is trying to move away from generality
Those tired of homogenous beauty have been increasingly experimenting with their own brows. “We’ve seen a lot of eyebrow treatments that make brows look anything but classic, childishly pushed in the wrong direction from futuristic soaps, and even bleached into skin tones – which Hackney hipsters really like,” Barber explains. Then, of course, there are those in the spotlight, such as Adwoa Aboah, Julia Fox, Jodie Turner-Smith and even Kylie Jenner, who have recently adopted bleached eyebrows without hesitation. This appetite for subversive brows looks set to continue too, considering how Poster Girl, Peter Do and Vivienne Westwood’s fashion week shows have created rebellious brows for spring/summer 2023.
But in everyday life, it’s more about “a new appreciation for arch elegance, a more streamlined, pencil-thin brow that gives shape to the eye,” Barber observed, citing “the coolness of early supermodels and young Kate Moss or Drew Barrymore’s Wild Child of the Nineties. “. It resonates – there’s a simplicity and effortlessness that makes slender brows feel very attractive in our post-big-pop, extremely fast, business-as-usual lives.
