Perfect drapes for the window to the soul
FOR CENTURIES, scientists and artists have attested to the appeal of the golden ratio, measured as 1.618 (represented by the Greek letter phi). The structure of the Parthenon and the faces of Renaissance paintings appear to have measurements that approximate the number, while phenomena in nature seem to say the same, from the spirals in leaves to the shape of certain galaxies. PhiBrows, a company headquartered in Serbia, now makes it possible for the approximation of nature’s perfection to appear smack dab on your face.
The company trains makeup artists on microblading techniques (small hairlike individual tattoos), but this is being overly simplistic. The tools of the trade involve a compass to measure the proportions of the face in relation to the eyebrows, through several mathematical formulas: from the midline of the face, the distance of the eyebrows from the whites of the eye, measurement of the ocular bone; and so on and so forth. Only when these have been measured, and the perfect length, width, and height of the eyebrows have been determined, does the process begin.
Ron Pena, one of the first artists in the Philippines to have undergone the training, talked to BusinessWorld during its launch on May 12 in Makati. Eyebrows can seem like a very minute detail, but if the eyes were “the windows to the soul,” you can think of your eyebrows as really nice drapes that draw attention to the windows in question. “Just by looking at the brows, you know already what the person is feeling,” she said. More than eyes, eyebrows aid in expressing more emotions — your narrow your eyes in anger, slowly; but you eyebrows shoot up in surprise much faster. “Whenever you’re talking to someone, you of course, look at the eyes, and it kind of travels [upward] a little bit from there, and then you look at a person’s brows.”
She then cited a study in the US where certain iconic faces had their eyes shaded out, and they were completely recognizable, but subjects in the study were completely baffled when the celebrity’s eyebrows were erased as well. (Also, for bonus laughs at a famous person’s expense, visit celebswithnoeyebrows.com; and, yes, it is a real Web site).
The procedure, according to Ms. Pena, has no downtime, citing some clients who had their brows done over lunch. While PhiBrows does not have a salon or clinic ( at the moment in Manila), one can look up its network of certified eyebrow artists (over 40 as of May 12) and book an appointment through an e-mail address on the Web site, phibrowsmanila. The procedure costs about P23,000 to P28,000. Noting that brow width has definitely increased since the late 1990s and the early 2000s when thin brows were all the rage; these days, a thicker, more natural eyebrow shape is more desired. She said: “People pay more for procedures that make you look like nothing was done.”