The return of the unibrow: 'I've never stuck to societal norms'
With more than 90,000 posts to its name, the #unibrow movement on Instagram focuses on the women who choose to sport their natural brows.
These women are dismantling societal norms of femininity – an act of defiance in an industry built around Eurocentric beauty standards. By embracing their facial hair, they are choosing not to modify their natural features in order to appease their western peers.
Women such as the late artist Frida Kahlo and the Bollywood superstar Kajol have been unibrow icons for years but, in the social media age, their aesthetic has been widely disseminated and copied. There are multiple YouTube tutorials, Instagram photos and Glamour cover shoots, where unibrows are proudly sported by influencers and stars including the Greek-Cypriot model Sophia Hadjipanteli and the British-Bangladeshi makeup artist Mashia Anjum. By dropping their tweezers for a less groomed brow, they are nodding to a more inclusive idea of beauty.
Blurring heteronormative beauty ideals was common practice in Iran’s Qajar dynasty, which lasted from 1785 until 1925. Research by the Harvard professor Afsaneh Najmabadi has revealed that unibrows were so desirable that women etched them on using mascara. However, by the latter part of the 20th century, Iranian beauty standards began to imitate those in Europe.
Shari Siadat Loeffler is a model based in New York who has been recognised by Vogue and Elle for her unibrow. “I’m never one that has really stuck to any societal norms,” she says.
Loeffler spent most of her early childhood in Massachusetts, describing her neighbourhood as homogenous. “I remember going into the first day of school every year having anxiety about not only do I have a unibrow, but also my name not being Lauren or Michelle.” Shari is shorthand for Sharareh, a Persian name that nods to her Iranian heritage.
The year before high school, her family moved to New Jersey, where she attended a “Waspy” private school. She was intent on increasing her proximity to whiteness, eventually removing her unibrow in an act of assimilation. “I told everyone I was half Greek and half French. I would bleach my arm hair and wax my moustache and do everything I could to look white.”
In the summer of 2017, after getting married and having children, she experienced a “perfect storm” of emotions. Loeffler was on a farm retreat and began to think about her relationship with her body. She decided to stop pedantically plucking her brows. “It sounds like a very simple concept. But when you’re so indoctrinated, it was a very revolutionary first step.” As a child, Loeffler had erased her unibrow, but now she was deciding to grow it out. “I took something that was so shameful and turned it into my biggest asset.”
Facialist and self-described “brow queen” Vaishaly Patel runs a skincare and eyebrow clinic in Marylebone, London. Her clients include Elle Macpherson and Nigella Lawson. She believes the trend for fuller, more natural eyebrows is here to stay: “Brows will always be on the fuller side, definitely not thin eyebrows – it will never go back to that.”
Loeffler is more circumspect about whether the unibrow trend will endure. “We’re having this moment, but it’s really a curated diversity,” she says. On a deeper level, despite the fascination and cover shoots, there is an element at which entrenched ideas remain: “You know, it’s funny; I don’t even think [my unibrow is] being celebrated yet.”
