Eyebrows

A person’s eyebrows can say a lot about him or her. And they contribute more to a person’s overall appearance than you might think. Perhaps that is why some people become so obsessed with completely reconstructing them.

I believe there are four basic elements that define a person’s brow; color, placement, and intensity. The fourth would be his/her ability to MOVE the brow for effect. Ever notice how some people seem to proudly (or obliviously) sport a thick unibrow that resembles those illustrations of Neanderthal Man? Since DNA testing began more than a decade ago, it has been discovered that Neanderthal didn’t disappear off the face of the Earth, as we’d been taught, but that he’d interbred, to some degree, with Homo Sapiens and that a good percentage of today’s population carries trace amounts of his DNA.

Well, I’m not claiming to be one of those people, at all, but my SISTER did the DNA test and came back with some Neanderthal. Not me! Ok, I just haven’t been tested, so there is no proof!

I wonder if that’s where those super bushy brows come from? I think that is most problematic if you also have DARK hair and eyebrows, like my brother. Yes, he has that dark unibrow that my maternal grandfather had. No problem that 30 seconds with a Bic razor can’t solve! Just slide it down that swath over the bridge of your nose and the unibrow has been properly divided!

Oddly, Mother had that same dark (almost black) hair and brows. But hers were well shaped and required only a quick attack with tweezers to remove the rarely occurring hair that sprouted outside of the approved pattern. I never learned about eyebrow pencil because in Mother’s house there was never a need. She had naturally and beautifully defined, perfectly arched and well-placed expressive brows. They had the attributes of a well-planned English garden.  My sister also got lovely shaped brows in a dark blonde or light brown shade that, like Mother’s, required little intervention.

Then, there are people like me whose eyebrows appear to be more like a naturalized planting across a broad swath of upper face without any particular restriction to form or plan. Apparently, my father’s genes prevailed in my case.

He cultivated a bushy forest of lemon-colored flora above his eyes, with hairs long enough to twist into delightful semi-curls which cast shadows beneath them. The older he got, the bushier and whiter they became. Despite Mother’s agitation with them (or maybe because he knew it annoyed her), he would not allow his barber to trim them. They matched his snow-white mustache and beard.

But, color plays an important part in my brows. You see, on a pigment scale from Zero to Ten, I rank at about 0.25, pretty darn close to albino. Except in the dead of winter, when no sun could penetrate roof and walls, the color of my brows, arm hair, leg hair, and most of my head hair was basically clear. And now that what little blonde had been on my head has gone completely colorless, we can best describe all of that filamentous keratin as fiber optics. If the light isn’t shining directly THROUGH it, it is reflecting off of its smooth surface in a blinding spectral light.

Still, the story is not too bad for my less than perfect brows. I do possess expressively pointed and movable dents at the apices of my brows that I use to define their upper arches. The extra fur between, above, and below where bone structure would demand the proper shape and placement, can be removed with five quick swipes of that Bic razor, leaving enough colorless brow to be apparent by the shadow it casts.

I’ve tried eyebrow pencil, but the difference is just too stark and heavy for me to accept that it is my face looking back at me from the mirror. Also, if I pluck them thinner, there won’t be enough shadow to see them at all. Sometimes, I brush on a little beige color eye shadow to make them barely visible.

So, while I do recommend dividing a unibrow and I am not against removing minimal strays to create a natural looking shape, I have never understood women who pluck them all out and then draw them back in at an entirely inappropriate place. As an artist, I can tell you that the hair of your brows is supposed to roughly follow the contour of your brow bones. There is no logic behind obviously fake lines being drawn somewhere halfway up your forehead.

AND, this is just a personal bugaboo, but why on Earth would you want to immobilize your face with Botox, especially your brows? I know, I know, people get all bent out of shape about those lines forming around their eyes and in their foreheads. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wish that particular almost vertical line between my brows were not so deep, but hey… my face MOVES! Can you imagine a storyteller with a frozen face?!? Yes, and I LIKE that it moves! Facial expression is a VITAL part of communication! I take great pride in being able to raise one or both of my eyebrows on command, being able to look cross-eyed in multiple modes, and yes, even being able to wiggle my ears! Who wouldn’t want to claim those talents?

That being said, there is one more concern I have with eyebrows which doesn’t bother men, but plagues older women. Yes, I am talking about those wandering brow hairs that decide to sprout out of your chin! I don’t care what color they are; they have GOT TO GO!