All Babes are Wolves: Boy Brows 2015

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Boy Brows 2015

Cara Delevingne

I have been obsessed with brows and the grooming of them since my late teens, as discussed here. I've always loved a nice arched brow, a la Elizabeth Taylor. However last year a new beauty trend emerged - the boy brow! Following on from the Brooke Shields natural look brow which comes around regularly, the boy brow is essentially a straight, thick, no-arch brow. Cara Delevingne's signature thick brows epitomize the look (they even have their own Twitter account), as do her friend Suki Waterhouse's au natural brows.

Suki Waterhouse, ELLE Korea February 2015

Miranda Kerr, Harper's Bazaar May 2015

Lily James, In Style Australia August 2015

Victoria Beckham Vogue Australia August 2015

Victoria Beckham is another poster-girl for this look having recently pared back her brows to a very straight, natural look. Check out the difference below.

VB shaped brow

VB working the boy brow

Kendall Jenner is another great example of the current boy brow look, keeping things very au natural and pared down in the pics below. I like a boy brow paired with a bright lip (like Cara, above).

Kendall Jenner

It is being touted as a way to take years off your face, perhaps because they do hark back to thick pre-teen brows, before girls discover brow maintenance. Also, your brows do get more sparse with age. Personally I prefer an arched brow - as long as you don't have them too thin! I am definitely guilty of a bit of over-plucking in the 90's! Thin brows are always aging. I did a really quick example below just using my blunted brow pencil and showed my partner. He concluded that the arch was definitely more flattering, and more youthful on me than the more 'caterpillar' straight brow. Given I have quite a defined natural arch, I did find it hard to straighten my eyebrow. You can see how the top of my arch isn't filled, but there is some filling below it.

Top, arch - bottom, 'boy brow'

To create the boy brow, use a blunt brow pencil or powder, and gently fill in your brows, keeping them as straight as you can. Fill underneath your natural arch, rather than above - you don't want to accentuate the arch. Try to keep them thick, filling in as many of the sparse patches around your brows as you can, to plump them out. A tinted gel brush can also add to brow fullness. You can also rub some Vit E oil or coconut oil into your brows at night to encourage hair growth.

Victoria Beckham, Vogue Australia August 2015

Sharp meticulously pencilled in brows can look hard and be aging, no matter what shape, so keep them soft and in line with your natural shape. Brow powders are great to keep in line with a more natural look. You can also use a nice sharp pencil to draw in eyebrow hairs for a natural feathery look. For a more dramatic effect at night, I will make my brow slightly more defined with brow pencils, as opposed to a more natural feathery look I use with powders for the day. My fave products are Benefit's Instant Brow (a pencil which leaves a powdery finish), and Benefit's Brow-zings (a wax and powder combo) See below.