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Unibrow model Sophia Hadjipanteli on how to handle offensive online comments
‘What is disgusting about hair on your face?’
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Your support makes all the difference.When 21-year-old model Sophia Hadjipanteli accidentally tinted her naturally blonde eyebrows black, she became a major proponent for the bushy brow movement.
The Cypriot has built up an impressive social media following since embracing her unibrow.
While many of her 165,000 Instagram followers have praised her for breaking beauty norms, some online trolls have left cruel jibes criticising her unique look.
Hadjipanteli, who’s currently enrolled at the University of Maryland as a marketing student, has spoken out about handling the offensive comments that she sometimes receives.
“When people say it’s disgusting, it’s like what is disgusting about hair on your face, or anywhere?” she told New York Magazine.
“You are probably across the world right now, you will never probably see me in your life.”
Countless people across the world grew up being taught to stigmatise natural hair, as Hadjipanteli explained.
“I think a lot of Middle Eastern people, anyone really, could relate to being hairy and always being told to take it off,” she said.
“I really wanted to push people to look at me and to look at a unibrow that they’ve been conditioned to think was kind of weird or maybe something you should get rid of, for them to still say that I was beautiful."
Hadjipanteli doesn’t mind when critics state that they think she’d look better with eyebrows that have been preened.
However, she believes that other people’s opinions shouldn’t dictate how you perceive your own beauty.
“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,” Hadjipanteli told Harper’s Bazaar.
“I personally think my face looks better this way. Others disagree, and that’s totally cool.”
Hadjipanteli has jovially named her famous unibrow “Veronika”.
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