Eyebrows-a-palooza or "We're Plucked!"

Friends, I would love to write the definitive eyebrow blog post today.  I fear this won't be it, but rather a somewhat scattered stream of consciousness on this highly alterable facial feature.  It's such a rich topic.  Almost everybody has eyebrows.

Those born with bushy brows wish they had less; those born with skimpy ones wish they had more.   Of course, my primary focus today is the female brow -- it's just more fun.  Men's brows will just have to wait (Sorry, Zac Efron).

Eyebrows are one of the most expressive parts of the human face.  They shoot up to express surprise (unless you're pumped full of Botox, that is).  They furrow to reflect concern or confusion.  They can communicate terror, lust, rage -- the full range of human emotions, and some inhuman emotions as well.

But why does brow fashion change -- and it does change often -- again and again and again?

It's easy to explain changes in clothing trends, which reflect the fashion industry's need to get the public to buy more clothes.  Of course there are other factors involved in changing fashion, like new technologies (stretch fabrics!), greater need for comfort and practicality (women in the workplace!), and a breakdown in central authority (Who cares what Paris thinks we should be wearing?!).  But how do you explain shifting eyebrow trends?  It's a puzzlement.

As with most things fashion-oriented, Hollywood both set the trends and reflected them.  Think how closely some of the stars below were associated with their eyebrows.

Clara Bow's narrowly penciled brows were all the rage in the Twenties.  They were long and low.

Pencil-thin brows continued to be popular into the Thirties, but drawn higher than in the Twenties (think Jean Harlow).

Marlene Dietrich boasted some of the highest eyebrows in Hollywood.  Not for the shy.

Joan Crawford, who changed her look constantly throughout her long career, had dramatic eyes that demanded a strong brow.  But there's strong and there's massive, and as Joan grew older, her brows got bigger, darker, and scarier! 

The highly stylized Dietrich/Harlow look got softer as the Thirties wore on. When Ingrid Bergman came to America just before WWII, she was a fresh-faced, natural brow trendsetter.

Lana Turner was said to have had no real brows at all after an early MGM plucking, and had to draw them in with every film.  As a teen starlet, Lana's brows look natural.  As her image got more glamorous in the 1940's, so did her brows.

Judy Garland started out with natural-looking eyebrows, which grew more and more stylized and weird, much like Judy herself.

Something unusual started happening in the 1950s: women's brows got heavy.  Liz Taylor  and Audrey Hepburn could pull this look off -- barely -- but on most women these dark, dramatic brows looked bizarre.

Queen of the Bushy-brow is Brooke Shields.  Her early Eighties look still startles, imo.

Setting aside Hollywood, let's not forget Frida Kahlo, the Mexican painter arguably more famous today for her monobrow than for her artwork.

Friends, there's so much more to say about eyebrows, and I invite you to say it!  What do you think about shifting trends in eyebrows -- where do they originate?

What about your brows?  Are they plucked within an inch of their life, drawn high in the middle of your forehead, or bushy as a lumberjack's mustache?

How about the controversial "chola brow"?  Too much, even for Sandra Bullock?

Who's your eyebrow icon (eyebrow-con?).  Jump in!

On Male Beauty

Readers, do you subscribe to the belief that a man can be too good-looking?

I was reading an excerpt from Rob Lowe's critically-acclaimed autobiography, "Stories I Only Tell My Friends" recently, and he believes that his good looks kept him from having the kind of film career in his youth he had hoped for.  Indeed, it's easy to believe that Rob's beauty could have been an obstacle.  (The modified mullet and shark tooth earrings weren't doing him any favors either.)



There are lots of different kinds of good-looking men (as there are different kinds of good-looking women) but the kind of good looks that seems to cause the most trouble, not only for the man himself but, if he is an actor, for his audience too (keep reading), are the ones considered "pretty."

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes a handsome man pretty, but we know it when we see it.  Tyrone Power is a classic example of this phenomenon, and based on what I've read about his life, he suffered for it, both professionally and personally.



Power died young after a life of considerable self-abuse.  He was only in his mid-forties -- and considerably less pretty.



When you think about the most popular male movie stars of classic Hollywood cinema, they're generally not the best looking (and this holds true for the women as well, imo: think Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert) -- the more rugged actors held on the longest and are best remembered, men like Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Spencer Tracey.





Some actors started out as beauties -- Gary Cooper and John Wayne come to mind -- but aged rapidly into rugged-looking, craggy-faced heroes worshiped by men and women alike.





A lot of this "curse of the beautiful male" thing has to do with homophobia: there's a sense that a beautiful man is likely to be homosexual or -- due to his almost feminine looks (long lashes, bright, light eyes) -- not sufficiently masculine.  Americans like their men to look like men.  Actually, I think it's that heterosexual American males like their heroes to look more rugged for fear of being labeled homosexual themselves.  It's all a bit headache-inducing.

Of course, the fact that many beautiful male actors are now known to have been -- or consistently rumored to be -- gay (or its mid-Twentieth Century equivalent), doesn't help matters.  Tyrone Power, Montgomery Clift, and the late Farley Granger come to mind.  Even in the gay male community, many put a lot of value on being "straight-looking," i.e., traditionally masculine.  (Clifton Webb need not apply.)

What is a beautiful man supposed to do?  Facial hair seems to help -- or does it only call attention to precisely the features they're trying to hide?  (Think Johnny Depp and Zac Efron.)





I've often read that teen idols are usually of the pretty type because young girls find them less sexually threatening (subconsciously, of course).  This would apply to everyone from Troy Donahue to Ricky Nelson (remember him?) to Justin Bieber.

When these teen fans grow up, however, they prefer Clark Gable.

Friends of the man-loving persuasion, how do you like your men?

Do you have a preference for the iconic strong, silent type?  Are you uncomfortable around a man who might be considered prettier than you are?  Do you have nothing but empathy for Joanne Woodward (who wasn't exactly homely but she was no Paul Newman)?



Are you suspicious of a man who's too good looking, either because you think he's likely to be stuck up, or the constant target of the attention of decorators, florists, and male sewing bloggers?  (And he might like it.)

Can a man be too beautiful?

Jump in!

Is Your Hair Too Long?

Friends, I know I'm not going to show up on anyone's best tressed lists anymore.  Those days are long gone and I'm OK with it.  Hey, I'm over 40!

My identical cousin Cathy, in contrast, has beautiful hair: thick, dark and luxurious as spun polyester:

But I was thinking over the weekend as we attached her extensions for our latest photoshoot, is there a point in one's life where long hair is no longer flattering?

Does it have anything to do with age, or has it more to do with the image a person projects (consciously or not).

I'm not a fashion historian and I know very little about hair culture among people of color so I'm going to narrow my focus to so-called "white" folks though I think some of what I'm going to say applies to many races.

My basic understanding is that throughout most of history adult women kept their hair long but tied it back so that it wouldn't get in the way of their work.  They let down their hair only in the privacy of their bedroom, and seeing a woman's hair free and flowing was the privilege of a husband, which is still true among many traditional religious groups today.

Things changed in the Teens and Twenties as many western women gained political rights and began to work more outside the home, in part due to modern inventions like the sewing machine.

In the WWI era, dancer Irene Castle bobbed her hair and started a fashion craze:

A bit later, actress Louise Brooks personified the modern Twenties flapper look, which was undeniably boyish.

Urban women were still keeping their hair short over the next few decades, usually curled or set.

In part this was due to the popularity of hats, which needed to fit snugly on the head.  Long hair was a look reserved for the young.  At least in Hollywood, long hair rarely appeared straight, nearly always in waves.

Any actress "of a certain age" (over 30 or so) kept her hair short.

Short hair for everyone came back into vogue in the early Fifties.  If you watch MGM musicals, you'll notice that around 1950 every MGM actress had her hair cut short, from Judy Garland to Esther Williams.  I remember reading somewhere that Mary Martin, who had to "Wash That Man Right Out of [her] Hair" eight times a week onstage in South Pacific helped to establish that fashion fad.

Big change occurred in the late Sixties, as a new generation of women (and men) rebelled against the old fashion rules.  Long straight hair took the country by storm.

Today, no surprise, we see a little of everything: short hair, long hair, up-dos, perms, weaves, etc.

But do we still hold to the idea that long hair is for the young and shorter hair for the old(er)?  There's a lot of this sort of thing online, where the rules about hair length and age get debated endlessly (primarily among women).

I would argue that with few exceptions, our society still views older women with long hair as a little...eccentric.

And lest you think this applies solely to women...

Wise and worldly readers, your thoughts:

Does a woman (or man) look better with short hair after a certain age or does age have nothing to do with it?  Is long hair on a woman too maidenly to look right on, say, a septuagenarian like Mamie van Doren?

Is it all just years of conditioning (no pun intended) that makes us associate long hair with youth?

Is this a fashion "rule" you subscribe to?  If not, why not?

Let your voice be "haired!"

NOTE: New comments are always welcome and will be read.