I was born with a monobrow. I'm not even joking.

I entered this world in February 1987 with what I can only assume was a stamp of approval from Frida Kahlo that I would, eventually, end up an artist.

Throughout primary school, I was vaguely aware of this slightly annoying feature. Thankfully, it was quite soft hair. But by the time I reached secondary school, my mother's tweezers had become my first beauty tool.

We were quite inseparable.

I would spend an unreasonable amount of time in front of the mirror, mathematically analysing which singular brow hair was throwing out the shape.

One hair would go. I'd look again. “And... that one!” Look again.

I wasn't particularly interested in makeup at that age. I didn't start wearing it until I was about seventeen and, even then, it was mostly mascara.

But the tweezers? They were a staple. And not just any tweezers. If anyone accidentally picked up mine instead of theirs, I knew the difference!

Eventually, I graduated to doing my school friends' brows too.

I distinctly remember one friend telling me that her mum had said if we kept plucking, eventually all of our eyebrows would fall out. She asked me whether this was true.

With the confidence of someone possessing absolutely no qualifications whatsoever, I declared that there must be a trigger hair somewhere within the brow, and that if we accidentally plucked it, this could initiate the mass fallout.

We all agreed this made perfect sense.

Funnily enough, this hypothesis may have been partly responsible for me surviving the 2000s with my eyebrows relatively intact.

I was always drawn to the fashion world.

In the school halls and on London’s teenage streets, there seemed to be a fairly clear idea of what constituted pretty. Big boobs, small feet, long hair and cute faces - girly.

The women I saw in fashion looked completely different. They were angular, tall, powerful, otherworldly…beautiful. I felt I had discovered beauty (ridiculous I know) but to me they were beautiful rebels against the beauty standards of my teenage world.

And their brows, thick, bold, brushed and badass, were the trademark rebel beauty feature.

Amber Valletta. Lisa Bonet. Brooke Shields. Christy Turlington. Natascha McElhone. Gemma Ward. Natalia Vodianova

I decided to align myself with those beautifully rebellious standards from then on.

And today, as I approach my forties, I believe I owe that fascination to still having a decent amount of brow hair left. (Most likely it's down to my genetic predisposition to a monobrow. Thanks, Dad)

I’d continue shaping my friends' brows throughout our twenties and later, while developing my illustration style during my graphic design studies, faces became my favourite thing to draw.

Brows included.

And now, here we are, I tattoo them on peoples faces.

I don't know that thirteen-year-old me and her tweezers had imagined that one day I'd have a Brow Tattoo Studio. Although she did have some very strong, entirely unsubstantiated theories about follicular biology.

(I promise I don't make stuff up anymore.)

But I guess I have that monobrow to thank after all.

By Ella Fjord
25th September 2026