Synophrys or Better Known as the Unibrow

A while back, Yam was looking through some old family photos and asked me on whose side of the family came the unibrows? I said they came from Granddad's side (which is surprising, as the bit of Greek DNA that is coursing through my veins is from my mom's side...more on the Greeks in a bit).

Here is a high school picture of my father. His unibrow is present. It is not a heavy unibrow, but still a unibrow.

This is a baby picture of me...no unibrow visible...yet.

By the time this school picture was taken (I think around second or third grade), I was sporting a faint unibrow.

In ancient times, unibrows were held in high esteem. In the Arab culture they were a sign of beauty as well as purity. The Greeks thought that unibrows were a sign of intelligence or wisdom. Women would use makeup to draw in a continuous brow if they did not possess one naturally.

 image from Internet

image from Internet 

 image from Internet

It was during the middle ages in Europe, that foreheads of women became the focal point of beauty. Women began to pluck the hairs of their eyebrows. They plucked them into thin lines and separated any continuous brow. Throughout the ages, women's eyebrows have gone from bushy to thin to bushy again (who can say Brooke Shields?). The artist, Frida Kahlo, was famous for her case of synophrys (as well as a faint mustache) and there is a Greek/Cypriot model who wears her unibrow very proudly.

 image from Internet

image from Internet

Thank God my unibrow was never as dark or heavy as the two ladies above. With that said, I did not like sporting one. When I was growing up (before Brooke Shields became so popular), it was not cool to have thick, natural eyebrows. I allowed one of my older sisters to gain access to my brow(s). She wielded those tweezers in an Edward Scissorhands-like fashion. By the time she was finished, I was in pain, had watery eyes and barely any brows left.

My eyebrows never fully recovered from the "defoliation" that they were subject to. Throughout the years I have been trying to grow back some of my natural brow line (minus the hairs over the bridge of my nose). Some areas just did not grow back. In the picture below, my brows are in a more natural state.

Alas, now that my brows are back to "normal", they are beginning to turn gray in places. The gray makes my brows look thin and stunted. Like the ladies of old, I have to resort to makeup to add more brow...I will "draw the line" at a unibrow though!