The Viral Revelation Of Brow Blindness

Can we all vow to never again abuse our brows?

The first and arguably most important thing you should know about me is that I am an extreme millennial. You wouldn’t look at me today and think “MILLENNIAL!” — at least I hope not?! — though god knows I rocked a lot of butterfly clips in middle school and “statement necklaces” in my early 20s. No, I’m talking something a little deeper, a little darker, a little more sinister, a little more follicular.

One of the great joys of being a millennial? Constantly changing eyebrow trends. For those of us born between the years of 1981 and 1996, the world of eyebrows was fluid. On any given day, you could wake up to learn that what was “cool” and “good” in eyebrow land was, overnight, no longer. Take the brows of my youth, for example: bushy, ungroomed, wild. Eyebrows of the 80s were full and fluffy; as with most things in the 80s…the bigger, the better.

Oh, sorry, now it’s the 90s? Better tweeze your brows to within an inch of their lives. Still not thin enough? Welcome to the early 2000s! Keep plucking. Better yet, shave them off completely and just draw your eyebrows on with a pencil! Who cares that your dad says you look a little crazy, like you’re always surprised! Who cares that your mom says you’ll regret it one day! (Spoiler alert: she was right.) Now you’re a young adult in the 2010s with your first big girl job? Grow ‘em out! Cheat fullness and dye your brows! The bolder the better! Think the 80s brows of your infancy but this time with cleaner lines and more pigment. Statement necklaces? More like statement brows! Wait, now it’s two years later and the full brows are ok but they need to look slicked into place so they don’t move a millimeter? Pass the brow gel!

Honestly, it’s astounding I even have eyebrows left after everything I put them through over the last 20-something years. All the love in the world to my hair follicles for continue to kick but what’s actually the most impressive part of this whole journey is the fact that I thought I looked good…nay, great…at every reinvention. When I look back at pictures of myself, the reaction is physical: I truly cannot believe I couldn’t see how nuts my brows looked.

I’ve asked other women in my life why they didn’t say anything. My sister just shrugged and said, “I was doing it too.” One friend laughed, “hindsight is 20/20.” My mom? She crossed her arms, raised one virgin eyebrow, and stayed silent but her expression said, “told you so.”

So I guess there’s comfort in numbers? Sisters in terrible-eyebrow-solidarity? If TikTok is to be believed, the browblindness epidemic is maybe even more widespread than I thought and we’re all finally ready to talk about it and laugh at ourselves. Bless the creators on there who are unashamedly sharing photos of the eyebrows they thought made them look amazing only to be humbled years later. Some admit to only realizing how overpowering their “bold brow” was a decade later looking at photos, some thank fairy brow fairies who gently suggested they “sort out your brows, now.”

Aside from the communal humor our past brows may be providing now, it’s also a nice reminder of the sheer power of the brow: they’re a fundamental part of facial symmetry and expression; they can harden or soften your features; they can literally change the way your face is perceived. So can we all join hands and vow to never again abuse our brows? To love them and cherish them and treat them with tenderness and care? To put down the tweezers/laminate/dye and stop giving into fleeting trends? Unless, of course, you want to be the one sharing laughable photos of your past brows in 10 years on whatever the social media app of the future is.

A few brow tools to help us on this path to healing: