The Trouble with #InstaBrows

Logging on to Instagram and searching for the trend #InstaBrows will load almost 14,000 results. Typing in #PerfectBrows produces 90,941 pictures.

Each of these pictures display a woman or man with perfectly plucked and groomed eyebrows. Some even provide a tutorial for how to accomplish such artful brows. Multitudes of women each day are posting their eyebrows on the photo sharing app and are receiving hundreds, in some cases thousands, of likes and comments. 

You may be thinking that these are just eyebrows. No matter how perfectly plucked they may be, they are just tiny hairs on your forehead. But celebrities like Cara Delevingne and Emma Watson have helped to usher in some of the strongest excitement over eyebrows in decades. 

The market for brow pencils, gels, powders and creams has soared in recent years, according to feel unique.com. Their studies have found that brow product sales have seen an increase of up to 200 percent as women scramble to keep up with the desirable bushy brow trend.

So what's the problem with this new brow craze? And why does it matter that people are posting their eyebrows on Instagram?

The main issue is that these Instagram posts are beginning to fuel the kind of envy that stick-thin models in magazines create. These edited, too perfect eyebrow posts are forcing women to believe that their own brow shape and pigment is not good enough. 

It is a pretty widely accepted notion in makeup that every person needs a different foundation shade, and that there is no universal color that will work for every skin tone. This is also accepted in shades of blush, lipstick, eyeshadow and almost every other type of makeup. 

Eyebrows, however, are not following the notion that everyone looks good in different things.

The thin, sparse eyebrow is now put down as desire for strong, thick brows increases. The #InstaBrows trend does not celebrate brows of every shape and size but focuses in on the new, beautiful idea of bigger is better. 

Instead of brow trends following the idea that everyone's face needs something different, it forces women to believe that their brows are only beautiful if they look like those in the posts. 

Every face shape is different, and so every eyebrow should be different. There should not be one universally accepted shape or size of eyebrows because not every person looks good with bushy brows. 

The number of edited, perfectly plucked posts of eyebrows on Instagram increases everyday. But instead of using this social media trend to celebrate all eyebrows, users are celebrating the bushy brow and teaching others with thin brows how to accomplish this new standard of beauty. 

So next time you decide to search for posts of lovely brows, try posting a picture of your own unique, perfect brows.