LacquerCritic Discussion - Brows 2000-2010

While I appreciate these articles for including a great, quick summary of brow trends through the ages, I believe they do a disservice by either entirely neglecting the 2000s (naughts? Is there a better name for this decade?) or lumping in the entire decade with the current "power brow" trend a la Cara Delevingne, as similar articles do. The high-effort power brow is most definitely a trend only of the last few years and not indicative of what actually happened in the 2000s. Maybe it's laziness in their research, or maybe it's a proximity to the decade - is it harder to characterize a decade during which you had your formative years? Either way, I've created an image gallery of my own with some looks from the 2000s that I think account better for the trends.

Speaking of trends, the difficulty with contrasting the 2000s to our present day is that eyebrows weren't a significant style focus. Most makeup tutorials in magazines tended to barely touch on eyebrows, essentially telling you to get rid of a unibrow if you had one and if you were lucky they'd give you some generic advice about cleaning up strays. Product recommendations mostly amounted to brushing your brows and setting them with wax - filling was rarely mentioned except for the occasional magazine that took pity on those with invisible blonde brows by suggesting they use a bit of powder. Brow products weren't really a thing - MAC had a clear brow gel, some brands sold two shades of brow powder and some wax, but it was nothing compared to the plethora of products available today.

It appears to me that brows of the 2000s generally fall into one of two categories. Either they appear nigh untouched as natural brows in all their glory (or lack thereof) or they speak to a bit of post-90s confusion with hinner brows that don't quite commit fully to the 90s, occasionally resulted in the notorious "sperm brow". The sperm brow isn't nearly as ubiquitous now as it was ten years ago, at least based on my observation, but it still lingers - I'm looking at you, Kaley Cuoco.

While I'm no expert, I've put together the gallery below with some images from the era that I think best demonstrate the few trends that made the 2000s distinct. Any feedback is appreciated, particularly on your own experiences. Did you wallow in the eyebrow confusion of the 2000s as I did, plucking at random and staring in the mirror in horror? Or did you manage to leave your brows alone because it just wasn't something that peers even seemed to care about?

As for what's next in the world of brows, keep an eye out for "feathered" brows: the power brow done with straight lines and perfect gradients came on a little too strong and the resulting trend is is leaning towards full brows that look far more natural with stray hairs, soft edges, and visible hairs within the brow itself.