Beauty
Bella Hadid is Hellbent on Bringing Back Skinny Eyebrows
They just keep getting thinner.
Thick brows, fluffy brows, and laminated brows have been trending for months (just look at the soap-brows trend on TikTok), but also what has appeared out of the woodwork is their rival shape—the skinny brow. Trending at the same time as the more wearable, thick brow shapes, the divisive shape is back as part of the Y2K revival. As a top proponent of the trend, Bella Hadid just confirmed that it’s here to stay and perhaps skinny eyebrows are revving up to overtake thick brows.
Bella’s eyebrows have long been relatively thin, emphasizing her sharp features. In September, we saw her post thin (but brushed up) brows for a shoot and since then, her eyebrow shape has gradually gotten thinner. Yesterday, the 25-year-old model posted perhaps her thinnest brow look yet on her Instagram. With no caption, Bella is sipping a drink (one from her Kin Euphorics brand) in a pink jacket and glamorous up-do. She has smokey eyes and the long, thin eyebrows visually lift her face.
Thin eyebrows were a staple of 2000s-era fashion, when the likes of Paris Hilton and Christina Aguilera over-plucked and sometimes drew their eyebrows on, pencil-thin. Since then, many people vowed to never return to the over-plucked look, and the last decade has been all about bushy, natural brows (thank you Cara Delevingne and Lilly Collins).
While thin eyebrows have been somewhat out of the trend cycle for the past decade, Nollywood scenes that have gone viral on Instagram still rocked the look as well as the drag community. It’s those communities that we owe this iconic revival.
Thin eyebrows started to gradually creep their way back into mainstream fashion and beauty this year, with the likes of Euphoria star Barbie Ferreira wearing line-drawn eyebrows to the Met Gala and FKA Twigs similarly sporting thin arches in the Sum Bout U” music video by 645AR. They’re also a natural progression from the bleached and shaved eyebrow trends that have been trending over the past couple of years, seen on the likes of brow renegade, Ugly Worldwide.
Whether you’re ready for it or not, skinny eyebrows are on the cusp of having another big cultural moment, with celebrities like Rihanna already on board. It doesn’t, however, have to be as frightening as the the 2000s version. Consider it instead the absence of filling and bolstering brows as we’ve been doing for years. By keeping her own hair (rather than overplucking and drawing them on) and brushing up the base of the brow, Bella Hadid has given us the perfect blueprint for the modern thin eyebrow revival—should you be brave enough to participate.
