Why is everyone so obsessed with the Scouse brow?

Fleek on Fleet Street

9 years ago

brow clubbing clubs concert square eyebrow eyebrows fashion freshers HD brows liverpool night out scouse scousebrow scouser student students university of liverpool UoL

What started as a little tidying and definition has turned into a pain staking mission to get that perfectly arched Scousebrow.

Coming to Liverpool as a fresher, you’re faced with a conundrum tougher than deciding between Juicy and Garlands on a Thursday night. Do you stick with your old makeup routine, which barely involved running a bit of eye shadow through your untamed brows, or do you evolve, and try and copy the dark and defined look of the locals, filling in every hair in order to achieve the perfect Scousebrow?

Yes, officer, these brows are completely natural, I swear.

Take a look around Concert Square on a night out and you’ll struggle to find an eyebrow that hasn’t been plucked, filled and defined within an inch of its life. The rise of the ‘Scousebrow’ has meant that everyone and their mother are taking regular trips to the salon to get their HD brows done, even if that means spending years in a chair being plucked, trimmed, waxed, threaded and dyed in order to achieve that completely unnatural but effortlessly up-north look.

before and after

With the unstoppable rise of the Kardashians and all they represent, the more natural look has been forgotten, replaced by makeup routines that involve hours of meticulous contouring, highlighting, and eyebrows being shaped and shaded until they no longer look like they’re constructed of hair.

The makeup industry rub their hands together and laugh as they sell us more and more products promising to give you the strong brow game you’re desperately trying to achieve. With brow gels, pencils, pens, waxes, shadows and pomades (seriously, what is a pomade?), the eyebrow choices are as varied as they are confusing.

Be prepared to either rejoice when you finally find the perfect shade that is neither too dark or too warm toned, or cry and resign yourself to having brows that are two shades too dark and ever so slightly orange.

How now brown brow

In the glory years of the 90s (when nothing tasted as good as skinny felt) the skinny brow was queen, but now thick brows reign supreme, and if your eyebrows are naturally pale or sparse you’d better fill those fuckers in until you’re Cara Delevigne’s awkward looking younger sister. Get to the brow bar, girl – or get to a night club loo where a nice Scouse girl will fill them in for you.

Never enough products

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of definition and shaping, but if your eyebrows end up half way down your face in the rain as your walking home alone (here isn’t room in bed for a girl, the two brows and a boy), then you’re probably wearing too much product.

Eyebrows can define your face, make your cheek bones look sharper and bring the focus to your eyes, but when your eyebrows are all a person can focus on, can they see the real you?

Jen Bullimore