Why are brows so important to us? Here are all the bizarre facts you never knew about your favorite facial accessory.
1. Brows Serve To Help Us See.
The real function of our brows (aside from making us look glam, of course) is to keep moisture out of our eyes when it’s raining or when we sweat. That arched shape helps divert liquid to the side of our faces, keeping those peepers clear.
2. There’s A Lot Of Hair In There!
According to the Bosley, the average person has about 250 hairs per eyebrow. However, some reports show that never-plucked brows can have as many as 1100 total hairs. (Wow!)
3. Brows Have A Lifespan.
The average lifespan of an eyebrow is four months, meaning the time it takes for each hair to fall out and new growth to fill in.
4. Your Brows Can Have Cowlicks.
Oftentimes eyebrows have cowlicks just like we have on our head. This is more likely to happen if you have wavy or curly hair, although it can also happen on those with straight hair. This is especially important to know because when you are trimming the brows, you need to trim in the direction that the hairs are growing. When you isolate a cowlick, you must notice the wave pattern or the direction it’s growing in and work accordingly.
5. Your Brows Are More Active in the Summer.
“Your brow hairs grow faster in the summer because of the warm weather and the fact that we’re more active. In the winter they slow down. (Yet another reason to take a warm-weather vacation)
6. Stress Affects the Growth of Your Eyebrows.
Stress can cause your brows to grow slower or not at all. I see brides trying to get their brows growing for the big day, and then once the honeymoon is over, their brows finally are growing in.
7. Why Your Eyebrow Hairs Don’t Grow As Long As The Hair On Your Head.
All of our hair grows at the same speed which is about 0,25-0,3 millimeters per day. The growth phase can actually vary, depending on the hair type. Eyebrows usually grow for about 30 day while the hair on your head grows for about 2 to 5 years. That’s why the hair on our head can become much longer than our eyebrow hairs. The actual length of a hair growth cycle differs from person to person and depends on your genes.
8. Your Hair Follicle Attempts to Recover the Hair After You’ve Plucked It.
Does the skin around your eyebrow bump up right after you tweeze or wax? It’s usually the hair follicle closing to save the hair. It relaxes in about two hours and then it’s gone. It’s not a breakout. If you notice bumps two to three days after a tweeze or wax? That’s a breakout. That’s usually from a product that was applied right after the wax or tweeze.
9. We’re Not The First To Beautify Our Brows.
When we pluck and define our brows, we are actually taking part in a long history of facial grooming. Every culture and time period has had a different way of shaping their brows: In Florence during the Renaissance, people shaved their eyebrows off completely, while the colonial elite in 18th-century America preferred to beef their brows up using grey mouse skin (Don’t ask us???).
10. Brow Gel Wasn’t Always a Thing.
Brow gel is a recent thing. Today’s brows are a more groomed version (well-shaped and trimmed) of the thick, full brows from the ’80s. But back in the day, we used clear mascara to hold our brows thoughtfully in place. Today we have
11. Eyebrow Give Us A Distinctive Appearance.
Our eyes, nose and also our eyebrows are distinctive features that help other people recognize our face. In fact, a study done by MIT found that people had more trouble correctly identifying the faces of people they knew when they were presented with images of them missing their eyebrows. Thus, researchers concluded that brows may be more important for facial recognition than the eyes themselves. Shape, thickness and color all influence how we appear to other people.
12. The Mona Lisa Doesn’t Have Eyebrows.
If you already knew this or never thought about it, we don’t blame you either way. Just think of all the tourists taking pictures with the painting and never once realizing her famous face doesn’t include the feature we’ve come to love so dearly. But there was a report in 2007 that suggests either Leonardo da Vinci revised the painting (removing the brows) or that they had been unintentionally removed when the painting was cleaned.
13. Eyebrows Express Emotions.
Our eyebrows also help us express our emotions and let our eyes ‘speak’ to other people. Brows can intensify our facial expressions, can give our face a certain character and can even make a person more interesting. Are you happy? Sleepy? Mad? Surprised? Your eyebrows are likely to give this away.
14. Strong Brows Are Not Just a Passing Trend.
Brows are no longer considered a trend but an industry focus, becoming a major category in makeup. According to FCB Research, it is estimated that 50% of consumers will take care of their brows in their daily beauty routine versus 28% in 2015.
15. Unibrows Were Seen as a Sign of Intelligence.
Many cultures throughout history held the unibrow in very high esteem (fortunately ours isn’t one of them!). While we’re more apt to pluck or tweeze, many notable figures exaggerated the hair because it was considered to portray intelligence and beauty.
