So, Does Everyone Hate The Microblading They Got In 2018?
PHOTOGRAPHED BY ROCHELLE BROCK.
BY MEGAN DECKER
When LA-based brow artist Kristie Streicher was first introduced to microblading — a semi-permanent eyebrow tattooing service brought to the US from Asia — she was a little wary. "I started noticing the microblading trend in the 2010s," she recalls, "but I didn't start doing it myself until 2015 or 2016."
If you remember, 2016 was the inflection point when everyone was convincing their coworkers, sisters-in-law, and friends of friends with faint or overplucked brows to try microblading. At Refinery29, it was a water cooler conversation. One editor reported that microblading their eyebrows was "one of the top three best decisions [they've] ever made in the name of beauty."
Microblading quickly became the epitome of a "high-maintenance to be low-maintenance" beauty service. New York-based brow artist Denise Barbosa remembers the trend takeoff as being almost perfectly timed to the swing in aesthetic preferences from skinny, thin eyebrows to thick, bushier, and more defined brows. "At the time, everyone wanted Cara Delevingne's eyebrows," Barbosa remembers. "People were dying to try microblading."
Who doesn't want great brows without ever having to pick up a brow pencil — or worry if it's the right shade? But fast-forward to 2024, and it seems like the buzz around microblading has quieted (literally), hinting that the service may be on the decline. More and more, we're hearing people express catastrophic remorse, like "Getting my brows microbladed is my biggest regret in life."
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