Face it: It’s not a pretty sight
Please Vogue and Rihanna, in the name of Hootie and the Blowfish, don’t tell me pencilthin eyebrows are back, pleads Natalie Reilly.
Rihanna graces the cover of British Vogue’s September issue this month, traditionally the biggest fashion issue of the year. This is no small feat considering how busy the 30-year-old has been lately: starring in Oceans 8, releasing milliondollar cosmetic and lingerie lines, posing as the Pope at the Met Ball, etc.
The cover, a close-up of Rihanna’s face, appears surrounded by some sort of floral arrangement. Rihanna herself is wearing a purple bow, (part of a Prada dress), gloves the colour of kumquats and a face full of what looks to be 1920s screen siren makeup: dark, ruby lips and pencil-thin eyebrows, which appear to be drawn on.
It’s a moment of triumph for editor Edward Enninful, who styled the superstar.
But, for me, a survivor of 1990s beauty trends, it was a moment of terror. Were those eyebrows for real? Please, in the name of Hootie and the Blowfish, don’t tell me those eyebrows are back. Some might say it’s only a magazine cover, I call it a gateway to Hades. It starts with the eyebrows and before you know it you’re wearing oversized corduroy pants with clogs!
The (admittedly beautiful) cover was made all the more horrific by the accompanying article, ‘‘Are Razor Thin Eyebrows Making a Comeback?’’ Apparently, this is their moment in the spotlight. Also: supermodels had them! Oh, I remember.
I remember plucking my already slightly arched brows to a level that might best be termed the ‘‘Jack Nicholson’’. Those who doubt this fact should know a close ‘‘friend’’ told me in my year 11 English class that I resembled him. A helpful soul tried to intervene by saying, ‘‘You don’t really look like him, it’s just the eyebrows.’’
Ah, but I was not alone. Back then there were no ‘‘brow bars’’. The only way to get your eyebrows ‘‘done’’ was to have your best mate pluck them to the point of no return during the five minutes before Party of Five but after Dawson’s Creek.
The casualties were too numerous to adequately process. Girls hobbling into repeated cinema screenings of Point Break with nothing but the first third of their eyebrows left; other girls taking the whole thing too far and plucking