Eyebrows are an attractive feature and can influence everything from your face shape to your attitude. They have also evolved over time, becoming more important and symbolic than just a beauty trend. Over the past decade, we’ve seen certain brow styles come and go, from boy brows to soap brows to the dramatic ombre Instagram favorites. In recent years, skinny brows, which were popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, have been seen on models and celebrities like Bella Hadid, Gabrielette, and Doja Cat. But thin eyebrows aren’t the same type of ’90s craft as body glitter, Tamagotchi, or Lisa Frank stationery. They have a strong history and strong ties to Chicana culture and the Mexican American community of Southern California.
If you were alive in the ’90s and early 2000s and had tweezers, you probably lived with the thin eyebrow phenomenon. The lean, defined look of stars like Gwen Stefani, Kate Moss, and, famously, Drew Barrymore, who was famously her “tweezers’ best friend” at the time, was everywhere. “I lived through the height of their popularity,” says Anastasia Soare, founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills and the famed “Eyebrow Queen.” “My eyebrows were very thin and had a rounded arch. It’s no wonder I’m always surprised when I look back at photos of myself.” But thin eyebrows didn’t come out of thin air; Barrymore’s Celebrities like you didn’t invent the eyebrow, either. Chicana beauty standards, particularly those originating from Chola culture, have played an important role in shaping and influencing the trajectory of thin eyebrows, which have since been revived within modern trend cycles.
Origin of skinny eyebrows
Thin, arched eyebrows are well known for having a history rooted in the movies of Hollywood’s golden age, to be precise. Stars of the 1920s and 1930s, including Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, Carole Lombard, and Jean Harlow, were the definition of glamor with their pencil-thin, sharply plucked eyebrows. “The 1920s was the era of silent movies, and as a result, thin eyebrows became popular,” explains Autumn Estelle Reed of Benefit Cosmetics, National Eyebrow and Beauty Bureau. “Eyebrows play a big role in portraying emotions and facial expressions on the big screen, helping to express deep thoughts and heavy emotions, so eyebrows are often removed and then replaced with a thin, dark, downward-pointing line. This look became synonymous with femininity and sophistication and influenced the beauty trends of the time. But the look goes back even further. “Thin eyebrows have always been fashionable, including in the Middle Ages, when eyebrows almost ceased to exist to accentuate the forehead,” explains Soare.
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The influence of Chicana culture on the thin eyebrow trend
Fuller eyebrows were almost always in fashion after Hollywood’s Golden Age (with a brief resurgence in the 1970s thanks to Biba, a London fashion label inspired by the 20s and 30s). except). In the 1960s and 1970s, young Chicana women in Southern California wore dark lip liner, gold hoop earrings, nameplate necklaces, and thin, sharply arched eyebrows. Dickies’ chola style with work pants and cropped tank tops was a blend of traditional femininity and edgy, provocative street style. It wasn’t just an aesthetic, and it wasn’t always representative of a gang organization. Chola culture draws great inspiration from the Pachuca movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Pachucas (and pachucos) were young Mexican Americans who adopted a strongly self-expressive style of dress as a response to the struggles and hardships they faced in the United States, from violent racism to cultural assimilation. Like the Pachucas before them, the Cholas carved out a place for themselves in a society that often belittled and denigrated them. Thin eyebrows were bold and unmistakable, and in a way helped them resist the same beauty standards that had alienated them. (Little did they know that they would later help shape mainstream beauty trends.)
In the 1990s, Chicana beauty symbols such as thin eyebrows, dark lip liner, acrylic nails, and winged eyeliner became mainstream. After legendary makeup artist Kevin Aucoin began plucking the eyebrows of every model in his chair at a ferocious pace, he turned thin eyebrows into high fashion. Kate Moss recalled in the documentary “Larger Than Life: The Kevin Aucoin Story” that Aucoin “held her down” and plucked out all her eyebrows. This trend continued into the early 2000s, when stars like Christina Aguilera, Beyoncé, and Paris Hilton became obsessed with tweezing.
“Whether it’s flapper makeup or ’90s Latin makeup, this trend is worth celebrating,” says Regina Merson, founder of makeup brand Reina Rebelde. “In the ’90s, the ‘chola eyebrow’ was most often combined with a thick lip liner look or a very tight hairstyle, both of which definitely complemented the lip contour in this way. . Not makeup-free eyebrows. ” When a beauty trend like thin eyebrows is woven into a particular era or associated with a famous icon, it can discredit the culture in which the trend was born. For example, when Hailey Bieber wore lip liner and lip gloss in 2022, it was quickly dubbed the “brownie glazed lip trend,” but the look started with brown and black women. It was. (Madonna’s famous black rubber bracelet in the 1980s also came from the chola style.)
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The modern skinny brow revival
While the beauty industry moved towards fuller, bushier brows in the 2010s, thinner brows are making a modern comeback. Zendaya, Rihanna and Doja Cat have also worn it, and it’s part of model and food influencer Gabrielette’s signature Latin-goth look. TikTokers and beauty influencers are also contributing to the style’s resurgence, but there are some lifelong skinny brow enthusiasts who will never stray from it, including Pamela Anderson. Reed says that today’s thin brows are a modern approach to the ’90s brows we remember in that they’re denser across the brow rather than completely sparse.
As for whether thin eyebrows will become the status quo of beauty, Marson believes it can only happen if everyone gives it their all. It’s a big gem,” she says. Whether it becomes mainstream again will depend on whether people want to put effort into the whole look, she says, because it’s not for everyone. After all, dramatically thin eyebrows mean commitment. (This is a lesson learned for those of us whose eyebrows haven’t fully recovered yet.)
Even though thin eyebrows are commonly thought of as part of a ’90s or Y2K beauty trend, they have always been deeply connected to Chicana women and represent their identity, resilience, and strength. Masu. From their Chola culture to their influence on celebrities and the fashion industry, these women undoubtedly helped shape this iconic look, inspiring their self-expression, community, and cultural pride for generations to come. It has become a powerful symbol.
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