How Very Low Brow

A long time ago, in a decade far, far away, during a time called “the ’90s,” eyebrow slits were a thing.

Hip-hop’s Vanilla Ice sported them under his big blonde bouffant. Soccer’s David Beckham accented his mowhawk with slitted brows.

Handsome as both men are, they both looked thoroughly ridiculous. But not quite as ridiculous as the hordes of Instagrammers now posting selfies with #EyebrowSlits, as this trend makes a comeback.

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The Urban Dictionary says eyebrow slits are “shaving gaps in your eyebrows … It’s usually done on one eyebrow but can be done on both, and there could be 2-3 slits on an eyebrow or just one.”

Debate rages among hip-hopologists as to the origin of eyebrow slits, but Big Daddy Kane, Soulja Boy and Bow Wow were some of the best-selling rap artists who started embellishing their brows.

By Y2K, eyebrow slits had crossed racial lines with Beckham and Ice, but then the trend seemed to fade away.

Or so we thought.

But why? Why is this resurfacing?

Some say eyebrow slits — aka cuts — are meant to make the (fashionista tough. “I applied a straight razor to an area just above my very sensitive eyeballs. I’m gnarly.” Or, “I used to have multiple brow piercings — but now I’m over it, and I don’t care that my brows haven’t grown back.” Or, “Yeah, I’m a brawler. That slit is where I had 10 stitches. Grrrr!”

This last hypothesis may be the most spot-on in terms of mimicking toughness.

Purdi Rose is an aesthetician in Virginia who is often asked about eyebrow slits.

“I’m not sure where the slits trend came from. Back in my junior high school days, it was said that a slit brow on boys was a symbol of being a gang member. I can’t say whether that is true or not, but I would recommend people do their research,” Rose said.

Jay-Z’s 1999 song “Do It Again (Put Ya Hands Up),” could be the Rosetta Stone. It’s one of the earliest mentions of “cuts” in a hip-hop song: “Three cuts in your eyebrows tryin to wild out.”

In a post for The Root, Yesha Callahan objected to the very term “eyebrow slits.”

“Calling something that is older than Soulja Boy ‘slits’ is a microaggression and an attempt to rename a cultural legacy… These are cuts. These are shaved eyebrows. Not slits,” Callahan wrote.

“Stop the Columbusing,” she said.

“Columbusing,” according to the Urban Dictionary, is “when white people claim they have invented/discovered something that has been around for years, decades, even centuries.”

Jessica Quashen goes by the Instagram handle witchy_baby. She is 28, originally from Los Angeles, but is now working as a stylist in Bend, Oregon. Quashen turned her well-trained stylistic hands on herself and cut in two eyebrow slits in her right eyebrow.

“I saw a few photos popping up around the Interwebs, and I like the way it looked,” she said. “I don’t really think I am making any statement by it. If I like the way something looks, I go for it.”

Oh, and a word of advice to those cutting up their eyebrows: You better pray they grow back in.

“Brows are meant to beautifully frame your eyes. My advice is to not remove hair from any part of the brow you think you may want to grow back in later,” Rose said.

“As an aesthetician who specializes in waxing, I’m always advocating for full and natural brows. Trends come and go. Tweezing and waxing certain areas of the brow can eventually result in the hair not growing back.”

If you’re like most people, you’ll be struggling with receding, thinning hair soon enough. So as long as you’ve got your brows, keep them trimmed — not trendy. And leave the ’90s fad retreads alone.