Eyebrows:The Historical Arc
The first characteristic of great eyebrows is that they are groomed. No stray hairs, tapered and flat against the skin. Is it just me or have you noticed that in pop media highly evolved hominids are always portrayed as having no eyebrows while early hominids have thick bushy brows? Thick and unruly brows just scream primitive. Groomed brows is evolution made manifest. Have you seen an abducting alien with Peter Gallagher brows? Never! (Klingons don't count) Or have you seen a neanderthal with pencil thin brows? Even in western art, after the Europeans got over that bloody crusade, brows got thinner. In Giotto's "Mourning of the Christ", Mama Mary's brows were thick and straight. Compare that with Wilton Diptych's Mama Mary and you will see a marked difference. That's only 150 years of evolution! My beautician's theory is that after Chaucer, the then world just got wiser - which led to the age of reality - which led to Brunelleschi's Dome of Florence - which is still guiding our Martha Stewart architectural touches. See, the whole historical arc of the western civilization can be compared to thinning arch of brows. I swear I am soooo bored right now, I could be shooting bleach or I could just take it out on eyebrows. I'm low on bleach right now. Ergo.
The second most important characteristic of great eyebrows is the arch. An eyebrow is very much like your life, part of it goes up, part of it goes down. If everything goes straight up, you're either a Vulcan or Debbie Mazar. If everything goes down then you're simply pathetic. The arc of brows must gently rise from the inner corners of the eyes, finding their peak outside the iris and then sloping gently 45 degrees above the outer corners of the eyes. The eyes and the brows work together to expand the emotive repertoire of the human face. Shave the brows and you look quizzical and in constant wide-eyed perplexity. Only Monalisa can look enigmatic without eyebrows, and only The Virgin Queen can communicate disdain and boredom without them. Karl Urban's brows in "The Chronicles of Riddick" were too straight, no arc. That's why he looked constantly mad. Ok, men must avoid a very pronounced arc or else they will have to give up all claims on the following titles: bisexual, straight tripper and just experimenting. If I'm beginning to sound like Imelda, slap me and make a documentary of my life. I'll see you in the lobby.
The third rule for great eyebrows is "age appropriateness." Babies have little to no brows, teens have more, pag lumandi na brows get groomed. If a girl gets obsessive with the tweezer she looks like Joan Crawford. If she continues with the trend, she looks old because she will remind us of stars from the 50's. For a man, it's really just grooming. If he over-plucks I believe he is not a man. When a man gets to his late 30's he must take a small pair of scissors to his brows and trim all the freaky long hair. Age brings a Walter Matthau-ness to brows and also to the hair inside and around the ears. Yuck!
The last point for brows is aesthetics. More often than not people with big faces DO NOT have big faces, their features are just crowded in the middle. If we could, we would move the eyes apart and the mouth lower, but we can't. So to solve the visual problem we can extend the ends of the brows further out. This would balance out the feature-face space ratio. If the nose is too wide or big, avoid brows that are too close. Wide nose with close brows suggest a bell or 60's flared pants! Someone once said "If the chin defines the lower half of the face, the eyebrows define the upper half. " I believe him. Color is also important, the brows must be the same shade as the head hair of slightly lighter. Ask your salon for Jolen or Sally Hansen facial hair bleach the next time you get a coloring job. Or use Dior Blonde eyebrow pencil. Or get Chamayu #5 from PCX, it's a beige colored mascara that can be used on brows. It can lighten the brows dramatically but test it first because on some olive skins, the Chamayu looks greenish. Best tweezers are from Tweezerman and Shu Uemura.
If this boredom continues, I will discuss eyeshadow designs and their evolutionary signals for sexual readiness in human females. Blood I need a sex life.
The second most important characteristic of great eyebrows is the arch. An eyebrow is very much like your life, part of it goes up, part of it goes down. If everything goes straight up, you're either a Vulcan or Debbie Mazar. If everything goes down then you're simply pathetic. The arc of brows must gently rise from the inner corners of the eyes, finding their peak outside the iris and then sloping gently 45 degrees above the outer corners of the eyes. The eyes and the brows work together to expand the emotive repertoire of the human face. Shave the brows and you look quizzical and in constant wide-eyed perplexity. Only Monalisa can look enigmatic without eyebrows, and only The Virgin Queen can communicate disdain and boredom without them. Karl Urban's brows in "The Chronicles of Riddick" were too straight, no arc. That's why he looked constantly mad. Ok, men must avoid a very pronounced arc or else they will have to give up all claims on the following titles: bisexual, straight tripper and just experimenting. If I'm beginning to sound like Imelda, slap me and make a documentary of my life. I'll see you in the lobby.
The third rule for great eyebrows is "age appropriateness." Babies have little to no brows, teens have more, pag lumandi na brows get groomed. If a girl gets obsessive with the tweezer she looks like Joan Crawford. If she continues with the trend, she looks old because she will remind us of stars from the 50's. For a man, it's really just grooming. If he over-plucks I believe he is not a man. When a man gets to his late 30's he must take a small pair of scissors to his brows and trim all the freaky long hair. Age brings a Walter Matthau-ness to brows and also to the hair inside and around the ears. Yuck!
The last point for brows is aesthetics. More often than not people with big faces DO NOT have big faces, their features are just crowded in the middle. If we could, we would move the eyes apart and the mouth lower, but we can't. So to solve the visual problem we can extend the ends of the brows further out. This would balance out the feature-face space ratio. If the nose is too wide or big, avoid brows that are too close. Wide nose with close brows suggest a bell or 60's flared pants! Someone once said "If the chin defines the lower half of the face, the eyebrows define the upper half. " I believe him. Color is also important, the brows must be the same shade as the head hair of slightly lighter. Ask your salon for Jolen or Sally Hansen facial hair bleach the next time you get a coloring job. Or use Dior Blonde eyebrow pencil. Or get Chamayu #5 from PCX, it's a beige colored mascara that can be used on brows. It can lighten the brows dramatically but test it first because on some olive skins, the Chamayu looks greenish. Best tweezers are from Tweezerman and Shu Uemura.
If this boredom continues, I will discuss eyeshadow designs and their evolutionary signals for sexual readiness in human females. Blood I need a sex life.
posted by Happy Housewife at 1:19 PM
1 Comments:
Great. Now can you tell me how I can make one eyebrow move up while the other one stays put, or moves down? If I can master that skill, I may get as much action as Jack Nicholson did. I promise I'll only target women who exhibit characteristics of great eyebrows.
(Seriously, this piece rocked.)
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