Monday, March 2, 2009

Not A Real Post. Unless You Care About Eyebrows.

For some reason, I've been noticing eyebrows lately.

(Well, most likely it's because my younger sister, who is awesome and hip, lists "eyebrows" as an interest on Facebook. And points out good eyebrows when she sees them. So, maybe that's the reason. If it weren't for my sisters, I'd probably be wearing a potato sack and have a beard.)

I never gave much thought to my eyebrows. I plucked them a few times a month, tried to get a nice arch shape and that was that. Then, I realized - halp! My eyebrows are being overplucked! By me!

As I was digging around for evidence of my former over-plucking days, I came upon this gem:
My lovely roommate from college, Kat and I from our sophomore year of college. Not only are my eyebrows horribly tiny, but my face is HUGE. Like, seriously. I know it's not because I'm fat. (See: Small waist) What gives, puffy face? Ew. I mean, my eyeballs are literally being swallowed by my cheeks. (Kathryn, on the other hand, looks adorable - with eyes that are open and a necklace that didn't come from the dollar store. WTF, sophomore self? Be cuter!)

After a few months of selectively plucking, instructed by aforementioned awesome little sister:
Me.
Maybe the thin eyebrows actually made my face LOOK bigger? I don't know. I'm still distracted by little miss puffy face with invisible eyebrows.

Just for funsies, let's compare two awful-quality, random pictures of myself - pre- and post-overplucking habit:
Yep, I sure am hugging my steering wheel. You wanna fight about it?

What do you think? Thinner or fuller? How to you prefer to, uh, groom your eyebrows? I'm curious!

{ETA: I got this with a gift card and am in LOVE with it. It fills in my eyebrows perfectly!}
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Did I really just write an entire post on eyebrows? I guess my tagline is officially "The 20-something environmental blogger who is off-topic more than she's on."

42 comments:

  1. Wow, you definitely made a good choice leaving those eyebrows alone - they're beautiful! I went through an eyebrow phase as well, definitely spurred on by puberty when you start going at yourself! I remember also when I was trying to figure out if I should shave my legs............ thank God the teens are over!!

    P.S. your face is not fat at all, you look young and cute :)

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  2. I'm obsessed with eyebrows! I'm always looking at other women because I feel like they can really make or break your face. It's all my mother's fault, she held me down when I was ten and plucked my eyebrows, and I've been doing them since (she loves me really, I did look like a monkey). Over plucking is awful, and it's a really fine line between good and whoa! I've been growing mine in too for a while. I'm sure I used to be better at plucking them. I have to maintain them everyday (damn monkey gene).

    OK, having said that, I like yours fuller. They really suit your face.

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  4. I also prefer fuller eyebrows to pencil-thin ones. Unfortunately mine are not quite as full as I'd like, due to overplucking in my teens and then them NOT GROWING BACK! Ack! Well, they've filled in a bit, but not as much as I'd like. I definitely need to do something back then, b/c I totally had "man brows," but I wish I'd had someone to give me some guidance on what I was doing. (My mom has never plucked her eyebrows in her life, and doesn't need to. Grr.)

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  5. I think all late 20-something women have had this happen. I know I did. And now I only pluck once a week - and even then, ONLY strays.

    I like my brows much more now.

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  6. I like your eyebrows as they are now. I myself have rather thick ones and came across an over plucked picture. It was scary! I like mine a lot more now too. :)

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  7. whoa your current, more full eye brows are soooooo much better. this makes me want to take a darn good look at my own eyebrows and reconsider what i've got goin on up there. or better yet- will you or your sister check out my brows and let me know what you think? thx.

    and btw you are BRAVE to look at your sophomore year photos. for some reason that year was HIDEOUS for not just me but all of my friends! chubby! bad hair! bad skin! bad clothes! we were obsessed with long gap jean skirts, purple eye shadow and the crimping iron. gahhhh.

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  8. Honestly, I LOVE your eyebrows now. Like, loooong before this post I've been in awe of them (I'd be friends with your sister, apparently - I should re-do my facebook interests right now, heehee).

    Anyone that can pull off thicker eyebrows, and still look supermodel gorgeous while doing so gets a +10 in my books.

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  9. Thicker. Definitely thicker. But don't be mean to your college sophomore self! She's adorable too :)

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  10. your eyebrows are amazing as they are but, honestly, i don't think they looked that bad when you were a sophomore.

    freshman year of high school i went through a MAJOR over-plucking phase and my eyebrows are just NOW recovering from that period (nine years later).

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  11. I have noooooo idea what to do about eyebrows, so every few months (three times a year? yikes...), I get into a salon and fork over the $12-15 for the pros to do it for me. My instructions? "Just make them neat, please?"

    Otherwise, there's the occasional pluckage when I notice they're particularly unruly.

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  12. Threading. Best thing EVER! I used to get them waxed, but threading is much cheaper ($8 vs. $15) and looks much better because they can be more precise. It's not painless (some people think its better than waxing painwise, but I think its worse in some ways.) Definately see if someone in your area does it. Its an old Indian practice, and my friend introduced me to it.

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  13. Threading. Best thing EVER! I used to get them waxed, but threading is much cheaper ($8 vs. $15) and looks much better because they can be more precise. It's not painless (some people think its better than waxing painwise, but I think its worse in some ways.) Definately see if someone in your area does it. Its an old Indian practice, and my friend introduced me to it.

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  14. In response to your last comment on my last post:

    Hahahaha! I know, right? I'm out of control with all the posting. And I still have more posts swimming around in my head, but I refuse to post more than once a day. :) I don't know why I have so much I want to blog about lately - it's just one of those things, I guess. It comes in waves.

    Oh, and I feel like a goober about the whole vegetarian thing - I hope nobody thought I was slamming my veggie friends. I just remember that was the first thing that popped into my head when I was eating the steak - how, no matter how cool/healthy it would make me feel, I would never be able to be a vegetarian. Heehee. I'm secretly bitter about the fact that I know I'm so not motivated (or creative) enough to say no to meat.

    And thanks for the videos! I check them out when I'm not at work (or when nobody is lurking around my screen...).

    In response to your post:

    Maybe I've never mentioned it before, but you have glorious eyebrows. They frame your face perfectly - and maybe they stand out more (in a good way) because we're so used to people over-plucking their eyebrows. People should lean more towards their natural shape, as opposed to plucking them to death. I used to pluck my eyebrows when I was a teenager, but finally stopped when I realized I was doing something that didn't even need to be done. At this point, I rarely pluck them at all - it's pretty much just their natural shape.

    You are my favorite for writing a post on eyebrows. I think I love you. :)

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  15. They actually both suit you, but it's amazing how different you look with different eyebrows! I think I prefer them now, more natural.

    It was funny the other day, I was plucking my eyebrows and my boyfriend said, you know, I don't even notice eyebrows! I replied that he'd notice if I didn't pluck them!

    I think every girl goes through an overplucking stage... mine are just the minimum pluckage needed now! Much easier and more natural.

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  16. Right now mine are too thing, I really need to grow them out/fill them in or something. I think everyone just gets pluck happy and forgets what they're doing... At least that's what I do.

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  17. I usually leave mine natural, and just pluck the strays. However, one time I went to get them waxed, and she went overboard, and I felt naked for weeks!

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  18. Your eyebrows are perfect now. I used to have the over-plucked brows but I think back then it was "the look." My esthetician has shown me the error of my ways and it's taken over a year to grow them in correctly.

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  19. I like the natural look for the eyebrows. I enjoy plucking mine, but I feel naked if I pluck them too thin!

    And yours are perfect just the way they are.

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  20. I think you were very cute with the thin eyebrows but more of a Sweet 16 kind of cute. Now you look sophisticated with the fuller brows. Be happy because my eyebrows are pretty much non-existent. They are very thin and I must color them in with a brush and a light brownish shadow. By the way, I can't believe you said your face was HUGE in all caps. Because it was not at all. But I like your over-dramaticness.

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  21. You look nice in all your photos (and your roommate is cute, too!), but I think your fuller brows frame your pretty eyes better than the thin ones did.

    As for my own, my aunt scared me and my sister straight when I was a teenager and my sister was a preteen. We were watching her (adoringly) as she got ready for a date, and she turned to us and said, "I plucked all my eyebrows out and they never grew back in! Never pluck your eyebrows!!!" The drama made an impression on me--I do a little cleanup and shaping, but there's no way I'm ever going overboard.

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  22. Woh, I didn't even recognize you!! Your face changed so much since then! Don't get me wrong, you were cute then and still gorgeous now :P

    About the eyebrows, I do agree with everyone that your eyebrows now are much better :)

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  23. i like them the way they are NOW!

    and you face wasn't chubby, you were just younger and you grew into your skin more. or that's what i've been told happens

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  24. I have always preferred thicker eyebrows, on anyone. They look more natural, & less "maintained."

    I have some TERRIBLE pictures of myself with very thin eyebrows, much like yours. & now that I think of it, my face looked chubbier!

    I would never go back... :]

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  25. Judging by the amount of comments on this post, it seems as though I'm not alone when I say I am OBSESSED with eyebrows. When I meet someone for the first time, my eyes go straight to their eyebrows.

    My eyebrows have no natural arch so they have been the cause of much frustration for most of my life. I got some sweet eyebrow powder and gel to hold them in place at Sephora.. and I have to say they've never looked better.

    Yay for eyebrows! Your decision to let yours grow in was a great idea. You look fabulous.

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  26. You look so much better with fuller eyebrows! They look natural and cute :) I pluck mine one in a while mostly because I'm lazy. I get a unibrow if I don't :(
    I went to a salon once to get them shaped and I could not look at myself until they grew back. The woman took so much off in-between the brows, that I thought I looked like a turtle... So now I just pluck them myself.

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  27. Olivia Wilde from House, triangle eyebrows. HOW?

    Jennifer Connelly, scary unfeminine eyebrows. yikes!

    Katherine McPhee, american idol castoff - eyebrow extrordinaire!

    I don't have a gift card and now I want that sephora stuff!

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  28. I like your brows much better thinner! Don't get me wrong though, you look great both ways!!!

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  29. I like the thicker look .. and now I'm thinking maybe I've totally over-plucked! gah!

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  30. It took me a few super-awkward years to realize that I (and as far as I'm concerned, everyone else) look better when I keep my brows as close to their natural state as I can without morphing into Bert (Ernie's pal).

    I watch my little cousins pluck theirs into oblivion and just cringe now.

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  31. only women truly understand the importance of a perfectly shaped eyebrow. I have full ones like you and wax every three weeks.

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  32. I'm seriously tripped out by how different you look with just a simple change of eyebrows. Who knew one tiny feature could make such a HUGE difference?

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  33. Definitely go for the fuller brow. Slightly fuller brows make people look younger and I personally think it just looks more normal.

    My eyebrows are crazy. I used to hate them a lot, and because of that, I thought about eyebrows a lot (like your sister) and envied people with good brows. I care a lot less now.

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  34. lol ...what a cute post. I was OBSESSED with my eyebrows at 19/20 years old. I would inspect them every day for new growth and TWEEZE TWEEZE TWEEZE!

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  35. I have to say I don't like thick and I don't like thin...I prefer somewhere in the middle..

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  36. Heheh this is my first visit to your blog...but I vote full eyebrows! They look great :)

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  37. I'm a visitor... but I'll put in a vote for full eyebrows. You look gorgeous with the natural lines. :)

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  38. I am not a fan of my eyebrows... They're thin like your over-plucked picture however, unfortunately mine don't get much bigger/thicker. They're light [blonde] and sparse so I have to color them in daily - HATE it. I might have to look into that Smashbox product... Everything blonde is still too dark for me!

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  39. I am not a fan of my eyebrows... They're thin like your over-plucked picture however, unfortunately mine don't get much bigger/thicker. They're light [blonde] and sparse so I have to color them in daily - HATE it. I might have to look into that Smashbox product... Everything blonde is still too dark for me!

    ReplyDelete
  40. whoa your current, more full eye brows are soooooo much better. this makes me want to take a darn good look at my own eyebrows and reconsider what i've got goin on up there. or better yet- will you or your sister check out my brows and let me know what you think? thx.

    and btw you are BRAVE to look at your sophomore year photos. for some reason that year was HIDEOUS for not just me but all of my friends! chubby! bad hair! bad skin! bad clothes! we were obsessed with long gap jean skirts, purple eye shadow and the crimping iron. gahhhh.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Wow, you definitely made a good choice leaving those eyebrows alone - they're beautiful! I went through an eyebrow phase as well, definitely spurred on by puberty when you start going at yourself! I remember also when I was trying to figure out if I should shave my legs............ thank God the teens are over!!

    P.S. your face is not fat at all, you look young and cute :)

    ReplyDelete
  42. In response to your last comment on my last post:

    Hahahaha! I know, right? I'm out of control with all the posting. And I still have more posts swimming around in my head, but I refuse to post more than once a day. :) I don't know why I have so much I want to blog about lately - it's just one of those things, I guess. It comes in waves.

    Oh, and I feel like a goober about the whole vegetarian thing - I hope nobody thought I was slamming my veggie friends. I just remember that was the first thing that popped into my head when I was eating the steak - how, no matter how cool/healthy it would make me feel, I would never be able to be a vegetarian. Heehee. I'm secretly bitter about the fact that I know I'm so not motivated (or creative) enough to say no to meat.

    And thanks for the videos! I check them out when I'm not at work (or when nobody is lurking around my screen...).

    In response to your post:

    Maybe I've never mentioned it before, but you have glorious eyebrows. They frame your face perfectly - and maybe they stand out more (in a good way) because we're so used to people over-plucking their eyebrows. People should lean more towards their natural shape, as opposed to plucking them to death. I used to pluck my eyebrows when I was a teenager, but finally stopped when I realized I was doing something that didn't even need to be done. At this point, I rarely pluck them at all - it's pretty much just their natural shape.

    You are my favorite for writing a post on eyebrows. I think I love you. :)

    ReplyDelete

C'mon, leave a comment. They're the best part!