Eyebrows! Whether we have ours thin, thick. long, short, bushy or penciled and drawn on, our eyebrows can provide windows to our souls as much or more than our eyes ever can.
The symmetrical shape of your eyebrows can either enhance or hinder your face! Eyebrows can also help others to identify clues to our true personalities.
The eyebrow is an area of thick, delicate hairs that grow above the eye that follows the shape of the lower margin of the brow ridges. The main function of our eyebrows is to prevent sweat, water and other debris from falling down into the eye socket. But, as we so often do to enhance the practical features that we have been born with, we use our eyebrows to communicate and to assist us with our forming of facial expressions.
I was born a towhead blond (very light, almost white hair) and remained that way well into my late teens. However, I had naturally dark eyebrows and eyelashes (almost black). I remember my mother used to always tell me how unusual it was to have such fair skin and hair, yet dark eyebrows and eyelashes. Since this is all that I have known for me, I prefer the contrast of my blond hair and black lashes. I do now wear mascara on my eyelashes, but they are naturally dark, along with my eyebrows. Here is a head shot of me where you can see that I have light skin, blond hair and dark eyebrows and eyelashes.
Eyebrow Fun Fact: Â It is not uncommon for people, women in particular, to modify their eyebrows by means of hair addition, hair removal, makeup, tattooing or piercings!
What we do for beauty!
The typical curved shape of the eyebrow (with a slant on the side) and the direction in which eyebrow hairs are pointed, make sure that moisture has a tendency to flow sideways around the eyes, along the sides of the head and along the nose, protecting the eye from unwanted particles.
A great way that eyebrows assist humans in expressing emotion is when the person is displaying  surprise or anger. Have you ever watched someone’s face who is exploding in anger or is genuinely scared or surprised? Their eyebrows literally pop about one inch up their forehead!
In makeup and beauty, the eyebrows shape the human face and give definition to one’s eyes and forehead. Some people can quickly move their eyebrows up and down alternately! I just tried this amazing stunt and I am not one of these talented people! My eyebrows only move together, as if they are twins.
Eyebrows are a major facial feature! Cosmetic methods have been developed to alter the look of one’s eyebrows, whether the goal is to add or remove hair, change the color of the eyebrows or change the position of the eyebrow.
There are several options that a person can use to achieve a smaller or thinner eyebrow, or to correct a unibrow (when the eyebrows grow together above the bridge of the nose, connecting like one long brow)!
Various ways to style and shape your eyebrows:
- Tweezing: Â Using tweezers to pluck out unwanted hairs, thereby shaping the eyebrows.
- Waxing: Using hot wax to remove unwanted hairs by the roots.
- Threading: A cotton thread is rolled over the eyebrow hairs swiftly, which pulls the hairs out by their roots.
- Scissors: Small scissors cut and trim the eyebrows.
- Shaving: Using a sharp razor blade to cut away and thin out unwanted hairs.
- Eyebrow pencil: Brushed or drawn over and/or above and below the eyebrow, you can enhance or change the color of your eyebrows, or thicken their appearance by coloring and shading around the natural brow.
Eyebrow Tip: A thin layer of mascara lightly brushed over the eyebrow works as well as an eyebrow pencil for adding color to the eyebrows.
All of these methods can be minimally painful for some seconds or minutes afterwards due to the sensitivity of the area around our eyes. However, as with all fashion, the minor pain is so well worth the end aesthetic result!
Tweeze, wax, thread and brush on!
Once in a while, with great luck, eyebrow hair that has been plucked enough times will stop growing back. However, don’t count on it!
Eyebrow Fun Fact: Â To create a more full look, eyebrows can be cloned in an eyebrow transplant. Individual strands of the eyebrow are mimicked to create a natural-looking eyebrow of the desired shape. Eyebrow brushes and shaders are then used to further define the eyebrow.
And, there is always eyebrow tinting! Permanent dye, similar to hair color, is used on the eyebrow, often times to darken them or to hide pesky strands of gray hairs.
Eyebrows can appear mysterious, mesmerizing and magnificent, adding alluring definition and character to any face shape!
When it comes to eyebrows, it is up to the individual to wear their brows to their satisfaction. The options of the colors and shapes of your eyebrows are numerous!
Not only can we speak through our eyes, but we can punctuate what our eyes are saying through our fabulous eyebrows!
To show the importance and the power of our eyebrows, in a study published by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), where subjects were asked to identify celebrities with either their eyes or their eyebrows digitally edited out, the subjects were able to recognize the celebrity 46% of the time with their eyebrows edited out, compared to 60% of the time with their eyes edited out.
The conclusion to this eye opening study? The findings indicate the importance of eyebrows in providing clues to an individual’s identity!
Fashion forward folks have even devised a way to lift sagging eyebrows: an eyebrow lift! An eyebrow lift is a cosmetic surgery procedure that raises the eyebrows, usually to create a more feminine or youthful appearance. An eyebrow lift is often performed simultaneously with a face lift. More recently, doctors inject patients’ eyebrows with botox or similar toxins to temporarily raise the eyebrow!
Glamour girl extreme!
When it comes to your eyes, the eyebrows definitely speak volumes!
Light, dark, bushy, curved, arched, straight, thick or thin, the color and shape of an eyebrow is truly in!
Define your face the eyebrow way!
Color, shade and shape your eyebrows to sheer perfection!
In fashion, whatever works for your fine face and fashion taste is the right way!
Pluck away!
Author Nancy Mangano is the author of two novels, A Passion for Prying and Murder Can Be Messy. Nancy has woven her love of detective work along with her fashion fun into her books. Visit Nancy on her author website at www.nancymangano.com, her author/fashion/style blog www.passionforprying.wordpress.com, Twitter @nancymangano and her author “like” Facebook fan page Nancy Mangano.
