A Trend That Raised Some Brows

Women in the roaring 1920s were no strangers to pain. Their meticulous beauty methods - which included using vacuum cleaners as hair dryers, and makeup made from messy wax - for achieving the perfect curls and picturesque makeup involved tactics most would now consider forms of torture.

"You don't get it, this is my serious face!" ViewImages.com.

With all the trouble they endured to get the popular flapper look, it should come as no surprise that women decided to fashion their eyebrows into the famous thin, clownlike shape. Perhaps they were making an attempt to express their true, remorseful feelings over how much effort they placed into creating the perfect face.

Or, more likely the case, they were simply following in the footsteps of celebrities like Greta Garbo and Louise Brooks.

In typical 1920s manner, the desired look wasn't easy to mimic. Women had no choice but to go to town with tweezers, often plucking until no trace of natural brows were left. Tweezers were then replaced with a stick of potentially lead-contaminated kohl eyeliner, which helped complete the illusion of dramatically high eyebrows.

The finished look, though leaving a permanent look of surprise on the wearer's face, was a welcomed change for those tired of the full, simple eyebrows that had reigned supreme for years.

The makeup for John Galliano's Fall 2007 collection was inspired by the 1920s. TheFashionSpot.com.

Painfully thin eyebrows proved to be all the rage well into the 1930s, but by the next decade fell out of fashion for full, well maintained arches. In the current era, some daring individuals have taken a note from flappers by shaving or plucking their eyebrows off completely, but this has yet to resonate with the fashion world as it did in the early 20th century.

And, considering the lengthy grow-out period for eyebrows, perhaps this is for the better.