If you’re interested in eye-opening facts about eyebrows, then welcome to the internet’s comprehensive guide. Why are eyebrows important? Can eyebrows grow back? We will cover all this, along with some interesting history, cultural norms, regrowth time, functionality, and plenty of interesting eyebrow-related facts.
Please excuse the terrible pun but “eye-browsed” the internet, libraries, and many other resources to compile this extensive information. It offers more than you will ever need to know about eyebrows. Let’s start with the basics.
Why are eyebrows so important?
We have eyebrows because of their functionality. Eyebrows stop liquids such as sweat or rainwater from getting in your eyes. The actual shape and density of our eyebrows are important for this reason. Most eyebrows offer a natural arch. This arch catches sweat and the remaining eyebrow hair diverts the moisture away from our sensitive eyes.
If your eyebrows are pencil-thin, they aren’t going to stop water from getting into your eyes. However, they could offer a different functionality that’s more important to you (i.e. - getting somebody’s attention).
Eyebrows are arguably the most expressive parts of our faces. We can express anger. We can demonstrate inquisitiveness. We can show happiness. Eyebrows are even largely responsible for unintended R.B.F. The GIF should help if you don’t understand the acronym.
(Image Source: Giphy)
Eyebrows are obviously important for aesthetic purposes. The shape, color, bushiness, and texture can highlight other important features of your face. They can draw attention to your eyes while detracting attention from your forehead - or vice versa. Eyebrows can even distract your crush from a recent bad haircut.
Famous Eyebrows
From Mona Lisa (no eyebrows) to Frida Kahlo (one big lovely eyebrow), we believe that true eyebrow beauty can take absolutely any form. They say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, well we believe it’s in the eyebrows. Just look at Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Brooke Shields, and countless others. It seems like every single generation boasts their own celebrity with strong and bold eyebrows.
This doesn’t exclusively apply to women, either. Certain male celebrities have equally distinct eyebrows.
When Daniel Radcliffe acted as Harry Potter, viewers were more drawn to his eyebrows than the lightning-shaped scar on Harry’s forehead. Spock’s eyebrows (Star Trek) are equally famous but don’t compare to those on Eugene Levy.
(Image Source: Giphy)
More so than any other facial feature, eyebrows allow us to easily recognize individuals. Heck - would Angry Birds look even remotely similar if they didn’t have eyebrows? Bert From Sesame Street wouldn’t look the same without his trademark unibrow.
In fact, studies show that people had more difficulty identifying someone they knew when that person had no eyebrows. Could you recognize half of your high school class if they didn’t have eyebrows?
No Eyebrows
Many people who research eyebrows online are interested in the time necessary to grow them back. We have some reassuring data for you. The average lifespan of a single eyebrow hair is four months. Eyebrow hair frequently falls out and is eventually replaced with new hair. However, eyebrow hair grows about twice as slowly as the hair on your head.
According to several famous beauticians, your brow hair actually grows at different rates depending on a variety of factors. One of the most influential factors is actually seasonality. While hair was originally intended to keep us warm in the winter, the opposite is true for brow hair.
Many believe that eyebrows grow faster in the summer because we are more active. More sweat = a greater need for eyebrow hair to divert the sweat. Another factor that impacts growth rates relates to your stress levels (the more stress, the slower that hair grows back).
if your eyebrows are currently bald - don’t worry about it. You are beautiful with or without hair above your eyes. Plenty of celebrities (like Whoopi Goldberg) don’t have eyebrows, either. History’s most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, features a woman without eyebrows. It’s unclear if Leonardo de Vinci did this on purpose, however, many experts claim to know the truth.
Some experts say that both her eyebrows and eyelashes actually eroded over time. Nevertheless, the absence of eyebrows did nothing to detract from this mysterious lady’s enigmatic smile. After all, have you seen how crowded The Louvre gets on a Friday afternoon?
However, if you DO want naturally fuller brows, we gotchu girl.
History
The trendy girl from high school didn’t invent the most recent eyebrow trend (and neither did Kim K). In fact, eyebrows have been an integral part of beauty for over 4000 years. Yes, you read that correctly. In Ancient Egypt, both men and women wore eyebrow-specific makeup to appease their God, Horus.
(Image Source: Grunge)
In case you aren’t familiar, the Ancient Egyptian God (Horus) was half-bird and half-man. Talk about a need for wing-tipped makeup, am I right?
However, this wasn’t an isolated eyebrow experience. Time after time, our ancestors used traditional makeup and ancient techniques to accentuate their eyebrows. For the Greeks, unibrows were seen as a sign of intelligence. In fact, it was seen as a very attractive quality. For women, it was a sign of virginity and purity, while for men, it signified virility.
While this may not currently be true in your community, the Unibrow movement is certainly gaining traction and quickly becoming a new standard of beauty. (Anyone see how buff Kumail has gotten?)
(Image Source: WTKR)
Fun Facts
On average, each person has about 500 total eyebrow hairs (250-275 per eyebrow, depending on how many you pluck). Generally speaking - the eyebrow hair closest to the center of our faces point in an upwards direction. As the eyebrow hairs get closer to our ears, they actually begin to point outward.
Some people even believe that the shape of your eyebrows can say a lot about you. It may sound crazy at first, but it’s not different than reading the lines in your hand or your astrology sign.
Curved eyebrows supposedly mean you are people-oriented. You can only understand problems through real-world examples. Straight eyebrows mean a person is direct, logical, detail-oriented, and analytical. This is something we’ve read
Angled eyebrows supposedly belong to people who like to be correct and in control. We believe that one is true. Sharp eyebrows = sharp attitudes.
In Conclusion
The next time that eyebrow trends are the subject of conversation at a party, you’re fully prepared to be the subject matter expert. Eyebrows are a surprisingly interesting subject. We seek to enlighten those who are curious about the brow. On the subject of eyebrows, we believe that… there’s more than meets the eyes here….
