London Fashion Week's Grunge Style Eyebrow Look is 2022's Biggest Mood Yet

London Fashion Week's Grunge Style Eyebrow Look is 2022's Biggest Mood Yet

It’s giving 80s hardcore punk. Big time.

If you were one of thousands (like us) glued on to your social feeds all day all week obsessing over the spectacles of the 2022 London Fashion Week ‘red’ carpet, independent London based label, Poster Girl’s runway would have undeniably caught your eye. In what was by no means a first for British makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench, we saw a parade of one of the most far-from-mainstream beauty looks at LFW - a ‘split’ brow, sliced up sharply in sections for literally the peak channelling of emo energy.

Ranging from the use of prosthetics for exaggerated facial features, to creating porcelain styled teeth, to making makeup products with physical wearable jewellery attachments, Ffrench’s much coveted artistic skill set has only been sung praises of by designers, industry creatives and art aficionados alike. Calling her just a ‘makeup’ artist would actually be diminishing to her craft. 

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Poster Girl Models for London Fashion Week SS23

The iconic split brow look Isamaya Ffrench concocted for this year’s SS23 London Fashion Week involved shaping portions of brow hair into spikes along with sequential slits across the arch - except they were only made to appear like real-life eyebrow slits using the latest in-market Brow Lamination trend. Ffrench played on the technique by using her own ISAMAYA Browlacq Brow Laminator - an extreme strong-hold gel - to comb, lift and lock the brow hairs upwards for a cut-up effect. To complete the much unconventional updo, models also sported facial piercings, a beauty choice we all know screams rebel like no other.

Image source: Instagram

Ofcourse, we could only help but wonder where the inspiration for this awe-inspiring brow look came from. If you think back to brow trends of the past, only recently in 2017, consumers broke the internet with their funky brow designs - a spiky barbed wire brow in particular - defying all boundaries previously assumed for ‘normative’ eyebrow styling. Similar to Ffrench’s split brow, the barbed wire look also saw sections of hair being spiked in alternating directions for a raw, emotive feel.

But that’s not it. We can think of one more eyebrow trend Ffrench might have taken inspo from, and this one needs no introduction.

It’s none other than the OG eyebrow slit - one of the boldest, most statement-making brow looks that’s been around since nonconformist fashion became a thing. Seen everywhere from the early days of the old-school hip-hop community in the 80s to Gen Z’s TikTok beauty routines of the 2020s, the brow look has usually been one reserved for risk-takers in beauty - and no one serves that title better than Ffrench herself. Culturally, we can make the association between eyebrow slits and a thuggish vibe of self-expression, in the blink of an eye. So it makes perfect sense that a slit up brow look was of choice for a fashion label like Poster Girl, whose ethos carries with it a strong sense of individuality shaped by a primitive, nostalgic and chaos-filled aesthetic.

Get the Look

Tempted to don the split brow look yourself? Don’t worry we’re not going to ask you to go shaving all of your hair off with a blade, none of that. You’ll need some tools on hand like a brow comb (a fine toothed regular comb may work too), a pointed stick end tool and an eyebrow spoolie.

  • i

    Moisten your brow spoolie with water or a few spritzes of Rose Water Spray. Rub the bristles of the spoolie into Brow Code’s Heist Brow Soap until enough product has transferred. Brush the spoolie through the brows to lift up all the hairs. Make sure you have the hairs as damp as possible - this will help with setting them in place.

  • ii

    Use your brow comb and pointed tool end to separate sections of the hair and stick in place in your desired shape. For achieving a spike effect, use your pointed tool to sculpt the top ends of the hairs in a triangular shape. After creating a sectioned effect, you can shape as you like. For a barbed wire effect, you will have to comb the hairs downwards, below the brow arch. If your desired shape is a boxed up look with sequential eyebrow slits, we recommend applying concealer to each area of the brow creating lines throughout to resemble real-life eyebrow slits.

  • iii

    Hot tip: You can also achieve the split brow look with a thick, strong-hold wax. The key is to have the brow hairs as wet as possible to make moulding easy.

Our Final Take? Split is Lit

Call it edgy, futuristic or far-from-the-ordinary, there’s no doubt that Isamaya Ffrench’s split brow look creation for Poster Girl’s show paid homage to the ‘alternative’ in all its glory. The offbeat beauty look was hands down one of the biggest standouts at London Fashion Week 2022, reimagining art-driven beauty with a twist. When you see the face as a canvas, there are unlimited creative possibilities in beauty, even for a niche feature like the brows. Having the split brow trend shine all over a global fashion week also translates into an optimistic future for the beauty industry - one where unorthodox styles make it to the forefront and subcultures aren’t so inherently ‘sub’.

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