Strong Eyebrow Game // The Ultimate Confidence Booster

In more recent months, the term "eyebrow game" has been tossed around endlessly and it makes me so delighted. For most of my early childhood, I had the light hair/ light eyebrows thing going on, in combination with bangs. Around fourth grade, my eyebrows got increasingly darker while my hair remained a dirty blonde. Ever since, I’ve had these massive, sometimes unmanageable, brows that used to bother me to no end. I wanted to pluck the hell out of them until I had those beautiful and thin eyebrows that all of my friends had. I was always too wimpy to groom my own eyebrows, so every few weeks my mom would pluck my eyebrows ever so subtly, never giving me the thin shape I so desperately wanted. She told me that if I over-plucked them I would regret it some day, as hers stopped growing back long before I was born. I grudgingly listened and never got those thin eyebrows that I so much desired.

Flashforward to my senior year when I finally grew confident enough to wear the bold lipstick, smile with my teeth, and walk around with my head held high (sort of). This was around the time I was seeing Lily Collins and Cara Delevigne everywhere (fall and winter of 2012). I was in heaven, and something clicked. My big, dark eyebrows were finally covetable. I would get compliments left and right about my arches and their thickness. People would tell me they were so jealous of them. Jealous. Of my eyebrows. You don’t know what that does to a girl’s confidence (or, if you’re a female, you probably do). Note to every person reading this: If you are ever in conversation with somebody, compliment something about them whether it be their makeup or outfit or general existence. This will make their day, or even their week. Hell, I still talk about the woman at the Origins counter who told me I had wonderful fashion sense and great eyebrows. This happened over a month ago.

I always joke that I like to make my eyebrows as big as they could possibly be without being a unibrow. Though, Frida Kahlo rocked hers so who knows. Strong eyebrows just make me feel more confident. I can wear my hair in a topknot, throw on my glasses and if my eyebrows are defined and I have on a nice lip color, I can be out in public without wanting to avoid eye contact with everyone. I don’t have extremely high self-esteem, no matter how much I try to convince myself that I do, but finally getting over my fear of my massive eyebrows helped push me in the right direction.

Learning how to embrace the features I was born with and accepting the different parts of myself has made my life infinitely easier. I truly wish I had learned this early on in high school. I was shy and awkward and hated what I saw in the mirror every time I caught a glance of myself, and I think people could sense that. I believe that I still am on my way, but it feels nice to not dread getting ready in the morning because I have to see myself makeupless or without my thighs covered, etc. etc.

Whether you have thick eyebrows, thin or full lips, a small or big nose, you are still a human being who can live and love, and I think you should embrace your differences because, as cliché and textbook as it sounds, they are what makes you, well, you.