STYLE / LOOKS : BROWS HIGH AND LOW
Maybe the buzz began with Todd Oldham’s runway show in New York this past spring, where the lace-up leather dresses made jaded journalists shift in their seats but the real shockers were the Kabuki-like plastic strips pasted to the models’ foreheads. Or perhaps the twin rebirth of Brooke Shields and Andre Agassi has had some sort of superciliary effect on the collective unconscious. Then again, we could just blame that trendy reactionary Bob Dole because brows, the beauty gurus tell us, are back.
Not that they were ever really gone. Except for those of the follicularly challenged (Whoopi Goldberg and super-model Kristen McMenamy come to mind), brows aren’t scrutinized with the same gusto as hemlines. But let’s face it: There is something subtly attractive about the way they add weight and mystery--not to mention the frank hint of sex--to a woman’s face. When Shields wowed the world as a 12-year-old hooker in “Pretty Baby,” her precocious sexuality had everything to do with the jolt of those brows above her dreamy baby face. Mother Shields may have finally driven her daughter away for good, but she knew what she was doing when she banned makeup artists from tweaking a single hair from those lush brows.
Most of the rest of us aren’t so immune to temptation. “A lot of women over-pluck,” says Los Angeles makeup artist Carol Shaw, whose clients include Nicole Kidman and Kim Basinger. “They get carried away because I don’t think they can judge what they look like while they’re doing it. It’s hard to get it right.” Which means that women often wind up wielding a pair of tweezers like a Weed Eater with disastrous results.
Maybe it’s because American women are so notably ashamed of excess hair anywhere on our bodies that so many of us tend to ritually rip out our brows by the roots with culturally distinct gusto, forcing them into Kewpie-doll commas and then inexplicably filling in the gaps with a waxy pencil. Alas, the intent may be Garbo, but the effect is too often Tammy Faye.
The solution? Trust a pro. Makeup artist Robyn Cosio, known in Hollywood as “the brow queen,” discourages her clients from going anywhere near their brows themselves. And they listen. “She has a God-given eyebrow talent,” says “General Hospital” actress Vanessa Marcil, and one editor of a top beauty magazine swears Cosio’s work is the reason her boyfriend became her husband. A session of “shaping” takes 15 minutes and costs $25, and the wait for an appointment at the Art Luna Salon in West Hollywood is about two weeks.
Cosio’s no-nonsense philosophy might raise a few eyebrows, but not the well-groomed ones of her devotees. “For makeup to look really good, your brows have to look amazing. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time,” she says. Sounds harsh, but she may have a point. What is a come-hither look, after all, but one gorgeous brow hitched a tantalizing bit higher than the other?
And gorgeous, she says, can vary depending on the woman. Helena Bonham Carter clearly prefers the sexy, androgynous tug of a strong brow, the bit of basso profondo oomph it gives to an otherwise sweet, girlish face, and clearly it works. Drew Barrymore, on the other hand, manages to look like a ‘30s screen siren gone grunge with her skinny brows. “She can wear them because it fits her little face,” Cosio says.
Which means if you don’t have brows as beautiful as Anjelica Huston’s, who, according to Shaw, has naturally beautiful ones, you shouldn’t despair. Either make yourself an appointment with someone like Cosio, or, if you’re feeling brave, tweeze the stray hairs yourself. Get some powder to match your brows (never use a pencil; it looks too artificial) and a stiff, slanted eyebrow brush with which to apply it and you’re all set.
But back to Bob Dole. If he really wants to convince us that he’s just an old softy, maybe he should try shaping his own menacing brows. His new, less-threatening image may sway a few voters, and I’ll bet him his lecture fee it’ll make pruning the budget look easy.
