May 9, 2011
The History Of Eyebrows, Part One
This portrait, taken of Bossy and her daughter last weekend, got Bossy thinking about family resemblance — which makes all kinds of sense since this post is about eyebrows.
Namely, Bossy was looking at her daughter’s natural eyebrows and remembering that was the way Bossy’s eyebrows used to look before Bossy began plucking them. This made Bossy curious about how her eyebrows would look if she stopped plucking them:
And this, dear and most esteemed patient council, got Bossy thinking about eyebrows throughout history.
You see, in the beginning, there was Gah:
And Gah plucked his eyebrows in the shape of an arch, an idea Gah stole from Jack Nicholson, who was created in Gah’s image, so it’s not really like stealing.
And then there was Adam and Eve:
Adam, who Gah created in the image of Radiohead, preferred the flat eyebrow look which best suited his sadsack face. Meanwhile, Eve plucked her brows and maybe even bleached them to within an inch of her life. The life she would spend banished from the garden, having babies.
After Adam and Eve, came her:
It’s Brooke Shields, and her method of eyebrow upkeep was as follows: pluck until they are the general shape of The Rhine.
Next we have him:
And, yeah, hello Monday, that pretty much brings us up to date!
I tried the Brooke Shields brow in high school. It didn’t work on me nearly as well as it does on her. Unwaxed, my brows look like Bert’s.
Brooke Shields has the best eyebrows evah.
Super-duper awesome photo of Bossy and Bossy’s daughter.
You completely forgot to meniton Ali McGraw, who inspired me to never pluck my eyebrows again, (hippie that I was), until I saw Susan Boyle. Then 40 years of not plucking came to an abrupt end. Looking like Ali McGraw was one thing, but …
First: Let me wish Bossy a happy (belated) Mother’s Day.
Second: Does Bossy ever have a bad hair day?
Third: My Aunt Ethel used to draw her eyebrows on. She had white hair but everyone called her “Red.” Oh, and her brows made her look like a clown. Funny, I’m still afraid of clowns. And while we’re on topic of brows, let’s not forget to give props to Mariel Hemingway. She gets overshadowed by Brooke, but hey, she had some great wooly bears back in the 80s.
My eyebrows have never met tweezers or wax. Every time I get a manicure they ask if I want my eyebrows done. When I say “no thank you”, the response is usually a shudder, followed by a slow head shake.
Yikes! on that jack nicholson serpent.
Eyebrows. Sheesh. You’ve seen the brows on my wife’s family, right?
Is there a good slang term for a woman’s eyebrows? I can say a woman has nice gams, to refer to her legs, for instance.
a discussion on eyebrows that doesnt include ernie and bert? or Frida Kahlo ? or me and the7-hairs-left-on-my eyebrows-thanks-to-decades-of-overtweezing-as-well-as-my-hatred-of-the-unruly-grey-barbed-wire-hairs-that-have-come-to-welcome-me-into-my-50s.
sigh.
grrrrr. eyebrows. they are the number one bane of my superficial existence! mine are thin, with no particular shape, but not thick enough to make a shape. i can’t win. when i was 20 and dyed my hair black, not the brows, someone devastated me by telling me a looked like a burn victim. then i dyed my hair a less harsh red and filled them with eye shadow and a brush, in a way that i felt was subtle. my friend told me i looked like a lunch lady. now i just shave my head.
Bossy, this is the year of you.
Embrace the eyebrow.
When you get older, they disappear…then you are Bossy Stardust plays guitar.
I love your hair.
Wicked awesome.
Eve wasn’t the only one with bleached eyebrows. When Olivia was about 13 and wanted to shave the non-existent hair on her legs, her mother said “No”.
Olivia, rebel that she was, bleached her non-existent eyebrows instead. Naturally, nobody noticed so Olivia had to step up her rebellious antics. Now Olivia craves Brooke Shield’s eyebrows or any eyebrows that can be seen.
Foolery has Brooke Shields’ eyebrows, but not Brooke Shields’ face. The end result is it looks like two caterpillars are parked on my face having an argument. They can stay, as long as they P R O M I S E not to migrate to my upper lip.
Gorgeous mother-daughter photo.
My mother never could figure out from which gene pool I’d inherited all these eyebrows. I started tweezing at 18 and when I discovered the miracle of shaping brows with wax at 20 years old…it saved me from the curse of Ernest Borgnine brows. And Lawdy, my own Girl-Child inherited my brows. We’ll be waxing her at 10 years old. (I kid, sort of)
Not much in the brow department for me.When I care can fill in a little for more style. Little or no plucking – mainly those middle age weird ones. Eyebrows are dark like my hair used to be but muted. Hair is now auburn and I love that.
I have genes from the almost hairless part of the family gene pool. Seriously, finding hair on my arms has always been a challenge. Moles and freckles in abundance, hair not so much.
Bossy’s beautiful daughter has nice brows to go with that million dollar smile.
I learned an unspoken lesson from the older aunts; never over pluck or you will be drawing on your eyebrows. Like the circus clowns, perpetually surprised.
Exactly as #7. No eyebrows really to speak of but that one unruly-gray-errant-pubicesqe-hair that grows out of my right one. I resorted to permanently tattooing eyebrows on. Better than clown face, …maybe…..
My ONLY regret in life thus far has been that I plucked the crap out of my perfectly lovely eyebrows when I was 14.
Brooke Shields eyebrows don’t last–but if you’re lucky you end up at least some eyebrows left in your forties. My son likes to say that we have caveman eyebrows in our family.
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I have never plucked my eyebrows and would be terrified to start and so am truly, truly thankful every day that my eyebrows are in a normal shape. Because if they weren’t?
I’d be caterpillar head.
If anybody needs eyebrows, let me know. I got more than enough, I’ll share.
After my cousin’s chemo, her eyebrows never grew back. So she had them tattoo’d on. You’d never know…or maybe I’m unobservant.
My husband is starting to have the English professor/woolly caterpillar thang goin’ on with his eyebrows. They crack me up!
The Jack Nicholson serpent is just WRONG.