I love that skinny brows are back, and I don't care what people say

One night, I got bored after months of staying in. My go-to facialist, who always fixed my brows at every facial, wasn’t available. As much as I liked the thicker shape of my eyebrows, I felt exhausted from having to fill them in to death. Making them look nice for the ‘gram was like putting on a mask. I still never felt like I had enough brow no matter how much eye makeup I put on.

I looked at all my old selfies and saw that they enhanced the asymmetry of my eyebrow levels. At the height of the “brows on fleek” phase in the mid-2010s to 2020, my eyebrows looked like Wario’s tubular black brows. Since it had been months since I had tweezed my eyebrows, I pulled out my trusty Parissa wax strips instead, ready to dive back into this controversial trend.

Smoothing out wax strips on the tops of my eyebrows, I peeled off each strip. Despite the high risk of messing up the shape, the slimness of my eyebrows make them look symmetrical. They almost resembled the skinny brows my mum used to sport back in the day. Compared to my 8th grade fiasco, at least these brows felt cute. Although I only tried them out once, I didn’t consider fully thinning out my eyebrows again until my Italy trip, where I wore skinnier eyebrows than my quarantine brows. 

Reverting back to the beauty aesthetics of my childhood reminded me of why they were popular in the first place. Sensuous and distinctly feminine, it made baby faces look more womanly overnight. It also balanced my shaggy mullet to give my face a more feminine appearance. The biggest perk was that it made my natural fox eyes look more lifted without having to see a surgeon. 

Compared to my big brow days, having skinnier brows allowed me to experiment with bolder makeup, still wear nude eyeshadow with heavy mascara and/or wear tinier sunglasses. I didn’t have to worry about letting one thing overshadow my eyes or fear that I couldn’t pull off wearing my parents’ vintage tiny sunglasses as the style previously clashed with the lowered arches of my (faux) bushy brows. I finally understood why the icons of the ‘90s and the ‘00s swore by thin eyebrows: it was the canvas for the face.

Like “fetch”, thin eyebrows have been trying to make a comeback since 2018 when Rihanna appeared on the cover of Vogue with ‘20s inspired makeup. Three years later, Bella Hadid groomed her eyebrows thinner at a photoshoot. A harbinger of beauty trends, Euphoria’s most under-the-radar beauty look is brought upon by no other than skinny brow stan Alexia Demie, whose arches are as sharp as her winged liner. In February, TikTok finally made it happen thanks to the 42M videos on the trend. Although the majority of it consisted of a thin eyebrow filter, not many of us would dare to wear it as we’ve been accustomed to the big brows of the ‘10.

Then, Pam & Tommy dropped on Hulu, where Lily James sported wire thin eyebrows like the OG Baywatch icon. Ultimate Safie brother muse and fellow DIY enthusiast Julia Fox proclaimed that skinny brows are “just hotter” in a makeup tutorial. In a campaign for Balenciaga FW 2022, Demie flexed her eyebrows with a blinged out Le Cagole. If this is a sign that this trend will go global, look no further than Hyun Ah, whose newly shorn blunt bob is styled with ‘90s skinny brows.

Though the resurgence of thin eyebrows is unexpected, it’s perfectly apt for the two years that we did not get out of the house. In this season of going maskless and endless nights out, a skinny brow is the best antidote for the years we let our brows go haywire. Given that trends are born and die on the internet, the thin eyebrows of the yesteryears are here to define this decade.