No Blinking!

February 2014 73 RAISED GLANCES Your brows, along with your eyelashes, define your face. Something that beauty pundits have started to take rather seriously. Like Jason Araujo, regional director, Northeast and Mid Atlantic, Stila Cosmetics. “Always start your makeup with the brow, so you know how strong or soft to go with the rest of the face,” he says. But the obsession with eyebrows is not new.Traditionally,many cultures have lent them ritual significance, like in Edo era Japan (17th-19th centuries), where a married woman was required to have shaved eyebrows till the birth of her first child. And then, there was the fashion obsession. Through the last few decades, eyebrows have gone through paradigm shifts, as far as shapes go. While the ’40s and ’50s were all about full, dark eyebrow—think Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn and Madhubala, the ’60s veered towards thinner brows with higher arches—think Sophia Loren and Saira Banu.And then came the au naturel,even slightly bushy eyebrows of the ’70s and ’80s, followed by the very groomed, very well-plucked look of the ’90s, which carried on till the very stunning Ms Delevigne stepped on to the ramp. Overnight, every woman’s secret obsession became a full-blown craze in the fashion and beauty worlds: It’s no longer about tweezing eyebrows to optimum perfection, it’s about creating visual perfection through techniques like micro-pigmentation and products like hair-boosting serums, pencils and fibre gels that add volume. SOTRENDY Embellishments. Geometric shapes. Surrealism. Experimentation with eyebrows has hit an all-time high. At Chanel’s Fall/Winter 2012 Cruise collection, models strutted down the ramp with jewelled eyebrows. Last season, Louis Vuitton used black pencil to intensify the brows, while Dior has almost consistently gone for gold the last few seasons. At Céline Spring/Summer 2014, it was all about geometry and surrealism: The eyebrow was a straight line—like Rooney Mara, a radical black line designed by makeup artist Dick Page. Erdem, Emilio Pucci, Jil Sander, Marni, Dries Van Noten, Viktor & Rolf and Givenchy have channelled similar styles. Designer Mary Katranzou has worked bushy eyebrows that extend to the forehead, as has Rodarte in association with makeup artist James Kaliardos. Last summer, Gareth Pugh chose to take a futuristic direction by placing white stickers on the eyebrows, and in 2009, Balenciaga went futuristic with pastel eyebrows. At McQueen and Saint Laurent, the eyebrow became invisible or was bleached platinum, although the credit for that look goes to Lara Stone who stepped out way back in 2006 with bleached, invisible eyebrows. It has become her signature look ever since. Style divas like Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus have also played with this trend. Eyebrows have emerged as symbols of avant-gardism and a sense of rebellion, even in everyday fashion, with exaggerated brows created with pencil liner, kohl and thick eyeshadow.

TO SHAPE OR NOT TO SHAPE On website daily make over.com, eyebrow specialist Joey Healey says that it is important to consider the symmetry of the face before styling your eyebrows. You must carefully think of the shape you would like to give them. The idea is to look young and appear healthy. So avoid angular lines if you have a square or slightly rounded face, but if you have a round face, go with an angular effect and make sure the eyebrows go up high. For a long face, opt for a horizontal shape and let the tail end of the brow stretch out. The higher the eyebrow goes, the younger it makes you look. According to makeup artist Fred Farrugia, a thick and bushy eyebrow adds character. Something Araujo swears by, too: “Make sure you don’t end up over plucking your eyebrows or fiddling around too much with the shape on top.” FOUR TIPS FROM JOCELYNE DE VILLENEUVE, CREATOR OF THE EYEBROW STUDIO, PARIS.

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1. Avoid plucking your eyebrows on a daily basis. This leads to hair growth under the skin and ends up looking ungraceful.

2. Never dig into the middle of your eyebrow. If your eyebrows become too wide. your eyes will look smaller. You really don’t want to look like Edith Piaf! 3. Never wax your eyebrows. It traumatises the fine and sensitive skin of your eyelid and eye contour, and is never precise enough.

4. A fixing product, like an eyebrow gel, is a good idea to keep your eyebrows from looking messy and to add some shine.

THEBROWBAR Brow bars are the new rage across the globe. In 1997, Anastasia Soare opened the first brow bar in Beverly Hills. Then came Benefit in San Francisco in 2003, followed by brow bars in other cities in the US. In 2003 itself, Sephora France set up an exclusive corner for Benefit at their store. We’re waiting for Sephora India to do the same soon! NO BLINKING!