Desmond Morris - 'The Naked Woman': Pt 3 The Brow!

High brow...

No brow...

When I first started playing around with make-up a year or two back I didn't realise how important brows were. Lipstick was the most obvious addition to start playing around with and then various eye-shadows and mascaras and it was only as an afterthought that I wondered what to do with my eyebrows. It was really only after sitting down and actually looking at mine before comparing them to magazine models that I became fascinated by the range and different types of eyebrows on display. Plucked, arched, tattooed, bushy, black, brown, those that used pencil or powder to colour the hair and those that almost painted on points and flowing lines. The variety on display was amazing, and what for me was even more amazing was that I hadn't realised exactly what was going on for so long! I think more than any other part of the human female face contemplating the female eyebrow was a real epiphany for me. 

Of course one result of this was that the varying eyebrow styles of every BBC Breakfast presenter would be carefully studied and pronounced upon; interesting commuter passengers noted and casual acquaintances duly assessed. Eyebrows, I discovered, were a real feminine trait par excellence and one that cross-dressers really needed to be aware of if the male beetle brow wasn't to prove too much of a distraction. 

Onto the book itself though. In the opening section of the chapter Morris provides a lot of information on both the bony brow and the hairy tufts that adorn it and for me one of the first surprises is that they are not specifically designed to keep rain/sweat/rain out of the eye. Oh no. In fact they are primarily a means of communicating, albeit on a fairly subtle way. Unlike chimps and other apes we have a high forehead, basically extra storage space for the brain, but this blank canvas can also serve as a handy space upon which our eyebrows can dance and a range of wrinkles develop according to our moods. To sum up this section of the chapter as succinctly as possible, they consist of the following six categories -

Eyebrows lower: Basically a frown which also produces little lines between the brows. It can indicate either an aggressive scowl or an anticipatory wince.

Eyebrows raised: A 'furrowed' brow indicating one of many states including wonder, amazement, surprise, arrogance, incomprehension, fear etc. etc.

Eyebrow cock: A bit of a tricky one to carry out, but one up and one down usually signifies scepticism.

Cocking. Trickier than it looks...

Eyebrows knit: Anxiety, pain and a sudden wince

Eyebrows flash: Apparently "The brief upward flick of the eyebrows is an important and apparently universal human greeting signal"  and it's usually performed at a bit of a distance. It's also used in conversation for emphasis and as a bit of a marker

Maybe he's in the wrong job?

Eyebrows shrug: Basically an Eyebrow flash that's held a bit for extra effect and that's often combined with a mouth shrug as well. A bit like those pictures of unhappy clowns who have a tear rolling down a cheek. You know the ones - furrowed brow, droopy lips and pinched eyebrows. Well that's the eyebrow shrug for you...

All of this opening section is well and good, but it's pretty general stuff and doesn't really provide any specifically feminine pointers, but then Morris gets on to a very obvious physical difference between male and female eyebrows - namely female eyebrows are thinner and less bushy than males. Of course this has led to the desire to 'super-feminise' these traits by artificially increasing this difference through plucking, tweezing and waxing. As much as possible the eyebrow position was also raised on the face to remove the appearance of frowning, apparently an indicator of age.

AS a result of the super-feminising of the eyebrows un-plucked eyebrows then became a 'masculine' trait or at least non-sexual in nature. Working class girls were discouraged from plucking and having un-plucked, heavy brows was a real statement, especially from artists such as Frida Kahlo and her famous monobrow or actress Brooke Shields in the 80s. I have to say that one woman who seems to me to really know the power of the eyebrow to both transgress and communicate is the artist Tracey Emin. Photos of her show the full range of eyebrow positions and she really gets them working!

For the cross-dresser about the best you can hope for is to surreptitiously pluck the wandering hairs a bit, gently mow the thatch to a manageable length and maybe attempt to clear as much scrub from underneath the brow as possible in an attempt to provide a bit of space for some eyeshadow (oh, and maybe a bit of light powder as well? Good luck with all that though if you're still in any sort of closet...

And this is what a fine pair of statement eyebrows look like...

Makeup and Masks

I spent this Halloween evening at the wonderful Rivoli Ballroom in Brockly at the glorious Magic Theatre costume ball, a twice-yearly bash that happens roughly at Easter and Halloween. The venue itself is London's last remaining 50s ballroom and not surprisingly is much in demand for filming various music videos, television and films, making a wonderfully atmospheric place for such an event.

Halloween was made for shy, new or closet TVs as it's the one time in the year that you can try to get away with a bit of surreptitious cross-dressing on the sly. For those slightly more confident it then becomes a great time to try a ballgown or some other fantasy item you couldn't expect to carry off at any other time and for those of us who are thinking more about the actual Halloween side of things it means lots of white face paint and black eye shadow! 

It's this reliance on the transformative act of face painting is actually the nub of the issue that I've been turning over in my mind. Basically 'when does make-up start being serious?' or more to the point why did I start feeling that the ghoul was inferior to the glam?

Two faces met across a crowded room...

I'd done a goth sort of look for this event before but for the following two years I was pretty normal-ish in the make-up department. However as this Halloween Ball actually fell on 31st October itself I sort of assumed that horror would be the dish of the day. And this was fine.  Great in fact because (surprise, surprise...) I've always enjoyed a fancy dress do or any chance to dress up, drab or not. So on to youtube to find some inspiration for my horror look. Eventually I came up with what seemed to be a Marilyn Manson style which I thought might do the trick (or treat...). 

In the event of course I neither had the products, the skills or the ability to get anywhere near the standard on the youtube video  (curse their flawless skin, un-saggy eyelids and their 20/20 vision!) and as the product started going on I was slowly becoming more disheartened. The white is never white enough, the black not dark enough. Everything was blotchy and thick and messy and of course I didn't have the right colours either. I'd already spent ages customising Depressed Ted and had also put together a hybrid gothic schoolgirl/vampire ensemble which I thought was OK - not great, but OK - and if anything the make-up was detracting from it. It was becoming a slight make-down if anything...

Birds of a face paint feather stick together...

When contemplating the evening ahead I had thought that I was secure enough in my dressing to happily slap anything horrific onto my face and act the ghoul without feeling that I had to be all glitz and glam. I thought that, as when in drab fancy dress, the face paint added to the overall fun and jollity so was an essential element to be treasured. It wasn't quite shaping up like that though and strange enough one other thing I hadn't counted on was that no-one would actually recognise me!  When I stopped to chat to friends and acquaintances I was getting blanked and then trying to explain who I was by talking over the music with a set of dental-paste implanted Nosferatu fangs wasn't helping a great deal either. By now not only was I feeling slightly envious of all those who elected to wear ball-gowns and sequins with matching flawless look but it soon became apparent that, like a ghost or un-quiet spirit, I seemed to be drifting between two worlds, caught in a phantasmagorial state of invisible social limbo!

Eventually, as the evening wore on my patience wore down. I chickened out and removed the black lips and teeth which helped somewhat. However one interesting thing that struck me about the situation was the bond of kinship that sprang up with others in a similar horror-mask situation. Small groups of facepaint heros were forming loose bands for mutual support, photos and the sharing of black Kohl. We re-assured each other that we looked great and you know... maybe we did. But I wasn't convinced (about me that is. They looked great).

I was obviously suffering a mis-match between what I thought would look good on my face and what I wanted to be on my face. When in drab mode I'd be happy to wear pure horror make-up, but unlike the lovely ladies in the photos who were happy to forego their 'looks' for the evening, I realised that I was feeling a tad resentful because being in a dress had effectively changed my mindset. Mind you, not drinking probably didn't help but I realised I wasn't quite as secure as I thought. I offer this as an illustrative guide

                       Dress + Femme > Horror x Bad Makeup

                                                whereas

                       Horror x Bad Make-up > Drab + Alcohol

On the night it was lovely spending time with the Crayon Crew, however next year I'm afraid I think I'll be chickening out. I've decided to leave the slapdash frenzy of childish facepaints and edge my way over to the far more photogenic world of grown-up make-up. 

I think I owe it to my stronger than suspected sense of narcissism!