Eyebrows: From Marilyn Monroe to Cara Delevingne

 

Full eyebrows are currently a real obsession, especially on Instagram. When Kim Kardashian rose to fame in 2010, bold brows became famous and the whole beauty industry changed. However, there’s a huge contrast between the way they look now and how they used to look a few decades ago.

In the 1950s celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe preffered subtle, pointed arches and brushed eyebrows. Ten years later new trends would come up and brows became shorter than usual.

In 1970s the ultra-glamorous make-up was very popular and thanks to public figures, such as the American singer Donna Summer, the waxed, thin, heavily arched brows were a must.

Brooke Shields was seen as a beauty icon of the ‘80s that put the natural look to the eyebrows on the map. In the 1990s skinny brows came into fashion again thanks to the super model Kate Moss and Pamela Anderson.

Then came tweezing obsessions and, the aesthetician Anastasia Soare developed a unique technique for shaping the brows according to people’s bone structure. Her amazing, distinctive work was emulated by Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell. However, the tweezing mania went on after 2000 as well and many women still regret over-plucking their brows back when pencil-thin arches were fashionable.

After 2005 more and more celebrities gravitated to natural and clean brows with minimal sculpting.

Today’s brows are completely different to ‘90s trends. The make-up artist and influencer Patrick Starrr launched the “Instagram brow”, promoting the “on fleek” look of very dramatic and defined eyebrows. Plus, influencers like Kylie Jenner and James Charles made these kind of brows even more popular and other Instagram figures involved themselves in the make-up industry by launching their own products.

“Cara brows” have also become trendy thanks to the British model Cara Delevingne who loves keeping her brows bushy and wild, “letting their natural shape go”. Since she burst onto the scene, Cara inspired people to adopt a fuller look and to reach for the classic eyebrow pencil, for filling the gaps in their brows.

Although we now have access to a lot of information, we can easily end up transforming our brows into a disaster. When it comes to brow techniques, things are not as easy as we see in make-up tutorials. Huda Kattan, make-up artist and the founder of the famous brand Huda Beauty, says that filing your brows is about the angles and proportions of your face, being “a mix of artistry and geometry”.