Sophia Hadjipanteli knows what she—and her unibrow—look like. But that doesn't stop the model and college student's Instagram followers—nearly 50,000 of them—from creating one of the most polarizing comment sections on the Internet. Just scroll through any one of her selfies or photos.
There are the followers who get it; they understand that beauty can be cultivated outside of societal's norms, and praise Hadjipanteli for her body-positive #UnibrowMovement. And then there are the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of negative commenters.
'I am not really doing this to show people that they have to like [my unibrow], I am more so doing it to show people that they can get on with their lives by having a preference. I personally think my face looks better this way. Others disagree, and that's totally cool,' says Hadjipanteli. 'I am not trying to get anyone on the unibrow bandwagon. If I like this, just let me like this.'
Hadjipanteli says she gets her amazing eyebrows from genetics, specifically her mom, who would drill the importance of taking care of them since she was little. 'If you're in a family where your brother and dad also have really nice eyebrows, you're never really self-conscious of having thick eyebrows,' she says. But as a natural blonde, she was getting tired of having to constantly tweeze, maintain, and fill-in her eyebrows.
'I saw a video on Youtube where someone tinted their eyebrows. I tried it, and I must have messed up and made them black,' she says. 'My brother was like, "It kind of suits you."'Now, Hadjipanteli tints them herself every once in a while when her blonde hair starts to make an appearance, in addition to coating her whole orbital bone in castor oil nightly before bed. (She adds: 'It really does help, it's not just a myth.')
But having a jet-black unibrow in the age of the hyper-perfect Instagram eyebrow is akin to blasphemy, at least on the internet. 'I think it's kind of bizarre that people who fill-in their eyebrows, not that I'm hating on people that do at all, but they're annoyed when I don't fill mine in and leave them as they are. We are both trying to achieve the same standard of beauty, but in a different ways,' she says. 'It upsets me that it's frowned upon in one way and glorified in another.'
In addition to comments ranging from 'you're beautiful and an inspiration, but you'd be better looking without those eyebrows,' to far more vile critiques from total strangers, Hadjipanteli also catches heat for choosing to wear colorful makeup. 'I wear makeup because it is fun. I have a unibrow because it is a preference. I wear makeup and have a unibrow because it is what I like. Don't put me in a bubble. Just because I embrace one natural part of me doesn't mean I'm a hypocrite for wanting to enhance other parts of who I am,' read a recent image caption.
She says her taste for colorful shadow and red lips, paired against her dark brows and icy blue eyes, 'looks cool in pictures, obviously' but doesn't always translate well to others at her university. 'I go to school somewhere where people are literally staring—they're more conservative people,' she says. 'It's just a lot on my eyes. They're like woah, that's a lot to handle. But I guess I am asking for that, in a way.' Hadjipanteli eyebrows can annoyingly get in the way when it comes to eye makeup, even though she tries to tone it down for school. 'Sometimes it does look like a lot, even for my preference,' she admits.
The Cyprian model recently posed as Frida Kahlo for a shoot she posted on Instagram. After getting 'so many requests' to dress up like the artist, Hadjipanteli finally caved. 'I didn't want it to feel like I was appropriating her at all,' she cautions. 'I have always loved her and thought she was so beautiful—I remember I did a project on her back in middle school, before I even had these eyebrows.' Dressing as Kahlo, the undeniable queen of the unibrow, gave Hadjipanteli a surge of confidence. After doing that, I feel like I have labeled myself as someone who is embracing being myself and isn't necessarily being natural, but instead just doing what I want.' She adds, 'I like having everything else snatched, except my eyebrows.'
The marketing student plans to continue unabashedly showing off her bold brows in the near future—come haters or high water. 'I want to be sure that I am not defined by the way I look right now. I look at [my unibrow] like it's winged eyeliner or red lipstick. In five years I might look back and think, "that was a cool phase!" But until people start to accept others for this specific feature on their face, I won't feel ready to move on from it,' she says.
