(no subject)

[moominmolly]

When I was in high school, this beautiful woman told me out of the blue that I had "nice eyebrows". At the time, I remember thinking "what a strange compliment! She couldn't have felt forced to compliment me on something, so I suspect she meant it, but..." Later, I learned that more people shape their eyebrows than I'd thought, and that it didn't even have to leave you with thin startled-monkey pencil lines for eyebrows. Recently, I tried plucking mine a wee bit, but wasn't too excited by the change. I looked a bit cleaner, maybe, but not so's anyone would notice.

But now, I'm afraid I'm primed. While spending time in the mall this weekend, I noticed that I've become obsessed with people's eyebrows. When we sat down for a moment, I couldn't take my eyes off of the foreheads of all of the passers-by. So many shapes! I'd never really noticed! I don't have any strong feelings on the matter -- those tiny pencilled-in lines make me a bit nervous, but that's it. But so many women do seem to have strong feelings! At a recent wedding, I noticed that one of dilletante's college crowd had had his eyebrows waxed, and it really did change his face to be a bit more open. But on the other hand, I can think of some very hot people with dramatic or unruly eyebrows, and it's just kinda sexy. So, indulge me:

[Poll #223751]

Comments

[zogathon.livejournal.com]

I'm quite interested in what people mean by "overshaped".

[justinjs.livejournal.com]

Basically, either much thinner than they naturally occur on people, or having a dramatically different shape than occurs naturally.

By "occurs naturally" I don't mean just how they would be otherwise on that person, but rather the bounds roughly being defined as what occurs among humans not doing such shaping.

It's also a fuzzy distinction for me, as whether it looks okay to me certainly depends on the individual person and the rest of their features as opposed to being purely a function of eyebrow shape.

However, excluding cases where the person is reshaping due to really unusually bad looking eyebrows, I think the cases where I find shaped eyebrows to make someone significantly more attractive to me are very few if any. There are plenty of cases where I find it to be neutral, and plenty where it's a negative effect.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

For me, well, it's partly about the pencil and partly about the shape.

Audrey Hepburn almost au naturel:



Audrey Hepburn well-shaped:



But she never takes it over the line into the too-eccentric:

(cutely dramatic, but I wouldn't want to look like that all the time)

Basically, I don't know -- if someone's eyebrows strike me, it's usually because they seem too pencilled in or too thin or too weird. If I simply notice them as part of a face, it usually means I think they're shaped well.

[justinjs.livejournal.com]

Oh, and to make my poll answer more precise:

s/creep me out/distract me/

I'm not bothered by them, exactly.

It's just similar to any other intentionally-weird feature: it takes over more than its usual share of my consciousness about that person's appearance.

For instance, if someone has a bright green mohawk, even if I like it I am much more likely to keep noticing that feature and thus pay a bit less attention to other possibly-positive features.

Same thing with overworked eyebrows, though they tend to be smaller. :-)

[armoire-man.livejournal.com]

Jeez, Moll! You're now officially the most intriguing person I see on LJ because everything you put up here deepens the mystery. I can't really say that about anyone else, because after awhile I manage to subconsciously plug them in to a pigeonhole of some kind, even it's a pretty offbeat pigeonhole.

The riding-across-the-country website, the gorgeous green hair and costume picture, all the great photos from the Rebel, the eyebrow poll, the questions about how people work in groups...I figure you've got it made in the shade, girl, but I'm just not sure what *it* is...

...which is *really* intriguing!

Anyway, back to eyebrows:

A few months ago I managed to shave off my right eyebrow completely, in a bizarre beard-trimmer accident. I was horrified. Actually, about a third of it was left, because I stopped before I whacked the whole thing, but it was pretty skanky-looking for a week or so.

I combed my hair a little lower over that eye, and nobody noticed. Believe me, I watched for signs. Well, one person I sat directly across from at Sunday brunch finally did a double-take and then asked if I was thinking of putting together a drag show or something, but that was it.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks! That makes me happy.

I learned a couple of years ago that my uncle singed off his eyelashes in high-school chemistry class with my now-aunt (his wife), and they never grew back. He's got brows, just no lashes! His eyes are unusual enough that I'd never noticed. So, be happy that at least the beard-trimming of the one brow allowed it to grow back after the fact.

[hyperliminal.livejournal.com]

See, you have nice eyebrows. I'd hate to see you do anything to mess 'em up!

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Hee. Thank you! I do actually rather like them. :)

I'm a bit scared of that problem myself. But then, why should I be more scared of trying to muck with my eyebrows than I should be of shaving all of my hair off? Whenever I think of it that way, I get the courage to tell myself I'll try anything once. ;)

[hyperliminal.livejournal.com]

On a completely other note, now that you're paying so much attention to eyebrows, don't they just start to seem *odd* altogether anyway? I mean, what a random place for two little lines of hair. It's not like they protect the eyes or anything. Or do they. Now you have me wondering.

[michigansundog.livejournal.com]

They sure help prevent sweat from rolling into one's eyes.

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

personally, i'm very fond of my eyebrows - i have a faint unibrow (i.e. a connection between the two eyebrows). however, the first three people i dated were all appalled by this fact, and went to extreme measures to try to excise the unibrow from my face (the most extreme, imo, being the person who borrowed my Leatherman and used the pliers to pull my eyebrows out. in her defense, i finally complained, and then she stopped.)

that's, well, apropos of almost nothing.

-steve

[rosif3r.livejournal.com]

dude! you have adorable eyebrows :-)