The Shifting Arches: A Cultural History of Eyebrow Plucking and Shaving

Throughout history the human face has functioned as a public document, and few features have been edited as frequently as the eyebrow. Physically small yet visually emphatic, the strip of hair above the orbit modulates expression, channels sweat, directs gaze, and, crucially, transmits cultural codes from grief rituals to notions of gender. Plucking and shaving remove anatomical material, but they also carve space for symbolism: a vanished brow can signal piety or mourning, while an exaggerated arch can broadcast status or rebellion. From bronze tweezers buried with kings to ammonium-thioglycolate gels trending on TikTok, the techniques may change, but the dialogue between brow and society remains much the same.

Ancient Egypt (c. 2600 BCE–30 BCE): Across Egypt’s desert climate the eyebrow served as both sun-shade and spiritual amulet. Ancient Egyptians took great care in shaping and darkening their brows. They used mineral cosmetics – a lead-based ore called galena (from which we get kohl eyeliner) – to paint their eyebrows in dark, dramatic arches (quite similar to the fashion today). Biomedical analyses of kohl residues extracted from Louvre palette E21084 reveal high concentrations of lead chlorides that stimulate nitric-oxide production, providing antimicrobial protection while deepening pigment density. Visual culture, from Old Kingdom mastaba reliefs through New Kingdom papyri, depict men and women alike with boldly outlined arches that parallel the curvature of Horus’ eye. The earliest written reference to eyebrow removal appears in Historiae II.66. Herodotus adds that households shaved their eyebrows in mourning when a beloved cat died, ending the vigil only when the hair re-grew. Whether or not universal, the gesture shows how the brow could embody sacred emotion long before modern cosmetics.

Mesopotamia and Achaemenid Persia (c. 900 BCE–330 BCE): Clay tablets from Nimrud inventory grooming kits that travelled with Assyrian queens during provincial tours; embedded among scented oils and ivory combs are miniature copper tweezers (ship-si-ik-ku), signalling the political weight carried by a disciplined brow line. The shape favoured in palace reliefs is thick at the head, tapering elegantly toward the temple, visually echoing cuneiform’s wedge strokes. Persian court etiquette codified by Xenophon describes how noblewomen masked with saffron-based skin creams would then pluck the tails of their brows to lengthen the eye; a look that is still echoed in modern Iranian bridal make-up guides.

Classical Greece and Rome (5th c. BCE–5th c. CE): Greek philosophy endowed the synophrys (continuous brow) with moral heft: Callimachus lauded Aphrodite’s continuous brow as the axis of divine intellect, while Aristotle classified the fused arch as a physiognomic sign of moderation. Attic women lacking natural brow density rubbed burnt frankincense paste or powdered antimony across the glabella to stain the skin, creating a unibrow illusion celebrated in red-figure pottery. By contrast, Roman beauty manuals such as Ovid’s Medicamina Faciei advocate meticulous tweezing to achieve a slender brow. Rome inverted the aesthetic; the sublata supercilia—an arched, separated brow—became a mark of urban polish. The medical literature still uses the Greek term synophrys to describe conjoined brows, and modern trichology notes their epidemiology across ethnic groups.

Heian Japan (794–1185 CE): Within Kyoto’s Imperial Palace the brow was as scripted as calligraphy. Hikimayu – total depilation of the natural brow and repainting of two soot mixed with clove oil “clouds” or “moth” spots high on the forehead – is documented in anthropological studies of Heian court rites. Gender-neutral until the Edo period, hikimayu illustrates how brow erasure could confirm rank as well as aesthetics. Court diaries such as The Pillow Book describe midnight touch-ups before poetry contests, lest perspiration blur the symbolic ovals during dance recitals. The style persisted – evolving into a marker of marital status – until a 1914 Tokyo ordinance briefly discouraged it in the drive toward modernity.

Abbasid Baghdad and Timurid Persia (8th–15th c.): Perso-Arabic pharmacopeias such as Al-Zahrawi’s Kitab al-Tasrif describe depilatory pastes blending quicklime, arsenic trisulphide and rosewater, applied with date-palm sticks to thin the brow tail before the remaining hairs were blackened with antimony powder. Miniature paintings from Herat show princely youths with delicately separated arches offsetting a thicker beard, illustrating how the brow mediated between chastity and virility in Sufi iconography.

High and Late Medieval Europe (12th–15th c.): Ecclesiastical authorities framed female body hair as a site of temptation, so depilation became a paradox: simultaneously evidence of piety and also a tool of coquettish display. Illuminated drawings often mock laywomen by exaggerating shaved foreheads and vanished brows. Ground alum and vinegar solutions were sold by itinerant pharmacists to achieve the smooth dome prized at courts from Paris to Prague. Iconographic analysis in Medieval Clothing and Textiles correlates plucked arches with rising waistlines and fitted bodices, suggesting that architects of fashion repeatedly relocated emphasis from hair to garment as a means of modest display. Clerical writers such as St Cyprian decried the act as devil-taught vanity – proving that the moral scrutiny so often aimed at cosmetics did not spare the eyebrow.

Renaissance to Georgian England (16th–18th c.): Portraits of Elizabeth I reveal ceruse (white lead)-induced brow alopecia patched over with cinnabar pigment, a practice lampooned in contemporary satire as “murdering nature to birth majesty.” By 1715 Monsieur Bonneval’s Toilette Reformée advised gentle tweezing only, warning that over-excision could convey libertinism. By the late Enlightenment a “natural” medium-thick brow returned, influenced by philosophical esteem for authenticity. For those deficient in their brow area, fake eyebrows were available; false eyebrows cut from mouse pelt and glued above the orbit. In Georgian drawing rooms, both men and women brushed powdered gray across their arches to harmonise with their starch-dusted wigs, producing an androgynous softness that mirrored Enlightenment debates on sensibility.

Victorian Britain (1837–1901): Moral treatises of the time equated unaltered brows with sincerity, so cosmetic plucking retreated behind closed doors. French-imported steel tweezers became discreet dowry gifts, and medical journals cautioned against “hysterical over-tweezing” reputed to cause neuralgia. Cabinet cards from the 1880s reveal full, shadowed arches foreshadowing 20th-century photographic aesthetics.

Twentieth-Century Western Oscillations: Emerging mass media amplified style cycles, each technological leap birthing a new brow doctrine:

• 1920s silent cinema – Clara Bow’s ultra-thin, drooping eyebrow lines conveyed pathos even on grainy stock.
• 1930s talkies – Marlene Dietrich’s make-up artist lifted the brow into an exaggerated parabola for Technicolor.
• 1940s war effort – Utility codes favoured fuller arches that required less upkeep.
• 1950s television – Beauty houses sold stencils promising the perfect 45-degree apex.
• 1960s counter-culture – Unplucked brows entered the visual lexicon of protest.
• 1970s disco – Disco culture revived pencil-thin lines.
• 1980s power decade – The fashion industry restored brow density, paralleling the aerobics boom.
• 1990s grunge/minimalism – Fashion manuals extolled etched-thin arches.
• 2000s reality TV – High definition TV broadcast revived fuller shapes; Anastasia Soare, better known as the eyebrow queen, codified brow geometry into sellable templates.
• 2010s–20s digital sphere – Algorithms rewarded exaggerated arches; laminated and micro-bladed brows dominated filters. A 2025 rating study confirmed that raising the brow by 4 mm diminished perceived trustworthiness while enhancing dominance.

Conclusions: Five thousand years of plucking and shaving reveal the brow as a mutable signpost of civilisation. Whether moved by grief for a sacred cat, obedience to court dress codes or the logic of the social-media algorithm, societies have treated the eyebrow as a canvas on which to project values and aspirations. Today’s chemical and digital tools for eyebrow shaping may differ from bronze tweezers and charcoal, but the underlying impulse – to modify a tiny patch of hair in order to communicate – remains unchanged.

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