What's Next: ‘Your brows, but better’
What’s Next is a new feature of DSN written by consumer beauty blogger Lonni Delane. The goal is to help give beauty merchants the cutting edge they need to stay ahead of the latest and greatest beauty trends. Feel free to share your thoughts either here on drugstorenews.com or email senior beauty editor Antoinette Alexander at [email protected].
Most of us may not be pained by some of the things we see women do to their faces, but when you are celebrity makeup artist Wayne Goss and your professional philosophy is to enhance your clients’ beauty through better makeup techniques and fewer makeup products, it can be quite frustrating.
In fact, it can be so frustrating that you create a Youtube video imploring your fans to rethink their makeup. Goss’ video rant against the trend of thick, unnatural, heavily-drawn brows has struck such a chord with the online beauty community that it has attracted well over one-quarter million views.
Trends in the way that women style their eyebrows are almost as much of a marker of the times as women’s hairstyles. The 90s gave us literally pencil-thin brows; brows that had been tweezed within an inch of their lives and then replaced by a highly arched line drawn on with pencil. Stars like Gwen Stefani and Drew Barrymore were among the worst offenders. Once women realized how aging this was and that full brows were youthful, the pendulum swung in the other direction.
This year is set to take us in a kinder, gentler direction with brow grooming. Goss message is catching on and other beauty gurus have begun to adapt new routines for their brows. Jaclyn Hill, one of Youtube’s most popular beauty vloggers with more than one million subscribers, has recently updated her brow styling to favor a more natural look. Supermodel Cara Delevingne is the new trendsetter, and Google reports a strong uptick in searches regarding her full, luscious brows.
Now that natural brows are becoming the thing, the market is shifting toward products designed to help women achieve fuller brows that won’t require so much makeup. Nilam Patel, founder of HD Brows, reports a huge increase in the sales of her growth serum Grow Baby Grow, as well as her brand’s brow pencils that create super-fine, hair-like strokes for the illusion of a full, natural brow.
High-end brow product line Anastasia of Beverly Hills has been Sephora’s best-selling maker of luxury brow products, but NYX Cosmetics has released a slew of new offerings for brows in its 2015 line that are direct competitors with the Anastasia products for half the price. One example is its Micro Brow pencil, which is considered by many to be similar to the ultra-fine point Anastasia Brow Wiz.
In 2015, we should expect to see increasing sales in brow growth products and fine-point brow pencils, as well as pomades and brow gels. As Goss said, heavy, unnatural brows must go. “It doesn’t enhance the picture," said Goss. "It just is a scary thing."