Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
K-pop makeup and I have a love-hate relationship because, while sometimes it can be outstanding, many other times it seems that stylists were too uninspired to use something other than eyeliner as a way to go from cute to sexy. Eyebrows are no different, and that’s why I decided to go through the two key elements of a good eyebrow — color and shape — so you can judge idol faces even harder.
Let’s begin.
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Shape
If you happen to have eyes, you may have noticed that the main trend for idol eyebrows is the so called “baby eyebrow”: straight and soft edged.
While following trends can be fun, one should be conscious that they might need a little tweak to look good on you — and sometimes they may not work at all.
Here’s a picture of Zico back in late 2011 when he was all cookie and no tough. You can see how, despite being dyed the wrong color (I’ll explain this in a second) his eyebrows look relatively good because they are filled in following his natural arch.
Now, this is a picture taken in 2014 during the “HER” promotions, and I think the difference is pretty obvious: his eyebrows have been re-shaped to a thick horizontal line and filled in with a sharpie or another similar tool.
Probably the best example of an arched-to-flat transformation is SNSD’s Hyoyeon. The difference might be less striking because she “got prettier” in the process, but hopefully you can see what I mean:
While Hyoyeon’s bone structure change caused by losing weight/”turning 20” somehow allows for a straight eyebrow style, 99% of the time the best eyebrow shape possible is your natural shape with more definition and filled in where it’s necessary.
Another common shape problem is what I call “cloud eyebrows”, where they are blended in such a way that they seem to disappear on the face, particularly on the inner corner. Crayon Pop’s Ellin comes to mind:
This likely has roots in the viral Instagram eyebrow tutorials going around which are heavily reminiscent of drag makeup.
Color
Idols have to change their hair color for every comeback, or even in the middle of one, which means they have to alter their eyebrow color as well. This is very damaging (since they have to bleach them before they dye), so it’s no surprise that some idols have resorted to semi-permanent tattooed eyebrows. The dumbest of them all — like Kwanghee above — might even go all the way to permanent tattoos, resulting in a creepy look that could freak Satan out.
dwelph’s waifu Seungyeon here demonstrates what happens when your eyebrows are too light: features fade and everything looks less defined. Stylists can get too focused on matching the hair color to the eyebrows and forget that lighter hair calls for brows a tad darker and vice versa.
Back to Zico, I previously pointed out how his eyebrows were the wrong color. This happens because the tone used is way warmer than the one on his hair: you should always aim for a cooler tone, no matter what your hair color is.
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Hopefully this was somehow useful/entertaining. Remember, at the end of the day, it’s your face and you can do whatever you want with it.
Nana don’t care.
