The Best 90s Celebrity Thin Eyebrows

Are thin 90s eyebrows coming back? Every year, beauty experts have a different answer. This 90s “expert” (not really) thinks they’re probably not coming back anytime soon. I had super thin eyebrows in the 00s, and don’t think they’re coming back to the maintenance. For thin eyebrows to look good, you almost have to pluck them every other day or more. While we all argue about beauty trends, let’s appreciate the thin 90s eyebrow trend and the celebrities who rocked it best.

How to Pluck Your Eyebrows Thin, if You Must

While I do not recommend plucking your eyebrows thin, if you must, here’s some vintage 90s advice from 19 magazine. Here are the key take aways from the beauty experts of yesteryear. For the rest who don’t want to commit, here’s how to get thin eyebrows without plucking.

• Use good tweezers (I recommend Tweezerman tweezers).
• Don’t go all in on thin eyebrows just in case they don’t look good on you.
• Only pluck underneath the brow.
• Pluck in the direction that the hair grows.
• Pluck after a bath and it will hurt less.
• And . . . most ironically, pencil them in!

Who Started The Thin 90s Eyebrows Trend?

Why were thin eyebrows so popular in the 90s? There’s a few theories out there as to why so many willingly pulled our their eyebrow hairs one by one to get the look.

One theory is that all trends are cyclical and come back around every 20 years. It’s about that time again, which is there’s so much speculation as to if and when the trend is coming back. I, myself, am a bit skeptical only because social media has made trend cycles a lot shorter. In any case, here’s what Harper’s Bazaar Australia posits about the 20 year cycle theory:

An obvious place to lay blame is the 20-year trend cycle – an often cited phenomenon that suggests 20 years is the time it takes for a trend to rise, gain popularity and fall, before starting all over again (though I would argue that in the Instagram age the length of the trend cycle is becoming increasingly shorter). 20 years ago we were at the turn of the millennium, emerging from the grungy ’90s which saw a punk revival, embodied in alternative subcultures. The extremity of the punk aesthetic was often achieved through harsh DIY methods: hair and clothing were distressed and bleached; skin pierced and tattooed; eyebrows often shaved off and drawn back on, thin and precise. 

“The threat of the skinny brow” from Harper’s Bazaar Austrailia

Kevyn Aucoin, the late world renowned makeup artist, is also credited with launching the thin eyebrow trend. He often tweezed the brows thin of his famous celebrity clients for editorial looks. This was said to be inspired by 1930s movie stars like Jean Harlow and Carole Lombard. Thin brows then seeped into the mainstream from there. I remember many thin browed celebrities featured in his revolutionary book, Making Faces.

The Best Celebrity Thin 90s Eyebrows

So who had the best thin eyebrows of the 1990s? Here’s a list of my favorites!