New trend is raising eyebrows

Beauty trends are a fickle thing. They come and go, from the beehive hairdo of the 1960s to the body piercing fettish of the ’90s and beyond.

If you’re up on your beauty advice, then you know all about Christmas tree eyebrows. Yes, you heard right. Eyebrows adorned with rhinestones, glitter and various other baubles to make them look festive. I’ve seen the photos on social media, and it seems fairly ridiculous, but you can’t imagine how the fashion industry is seizing on this hip new trend.

“Christmas tree eyebrows are so bad, they’re incredible,” gushed Choe Bryan on the Mashable website. “Basically, they’re a modified version of the feather brow look (which is sooooo last year), but with extra baubles.”

If you’re thinking about Christmas tree eyebrows, it involves fraying your brows into a tree-looking shape (there can be wax involved here) and gluing tiny ornaments to the brows.

Not to be outdone, Allure weighed in, too, saying the holiday brows are 2017’s final weird eyebrow trend.

“Maybe it’s the Christmas spirit, maybe it’s the makeup equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome; either way, I have officially stopped resisting the wild brow trend and fully embrace that it’s here to stay,” shared Evelyn Wang of Allure.

Plucking one’s eyebrows had been an unpleasant chore most women have endured since it became fashionable to have tidy, trim brows. That’s apparently all a thing of the past now because this has been the year of the brow. Trendy women these days are glorifying their brows, styling them to look as if they’ve been braided or plaited. Another fashion statement is to feather one’s brows, splaying the hairs with Vaseline to create a feather-like appearance.

Got a uni-brow? Bring it on, the fashion magazines say. Throw those tweezers away.

An even more bizarre trend has beauty addicts framing their brows with aluminum flakes, reports The Sun.

I’m not sure whether the eyebrow trends are limited to women, but I’m imagining what a heyday beauticians could have with the Erickson clan on my mom’s side of the family, where you’d think growing bushy eyebrows was a new competitive sport. Two of my three brothers inherited the ample “old-man” brows that go every which-way and grow freakishly long.

Of course there’s a perfectly good answer for this. Popular Science ran a full article in 2013 on the subject “Why Do Old People Get So Hairy?” and it basically boils down to testosterone, the male hormone responsible for excessive nose and ear hair as men age, too.

But back to the Christmas tree eyebrows, I’m all for equality so I’m going to suggest to my brothers that they consider decorating their lush brows for the holidays. At least one of them is crazy enough to try it.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.