Eyebrows. We fuss over them — creating the perfect arch, thinning out too-thick brows or filling in sparse ones. And for good reason. They are an essential feature of our faces. They are so essential, in fact, that without them, we may be unrecognizable. In 2003, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published a study all about the importance of eyebrows, and they offered some pretty interesting results. A person’s eyebrows can make them look sad, tired or even angry depending on their arch and location. Take a look at this same face with different eyebrows:
Notice how the eyebrows on the right, which are closer to the eyes and turn inward, make the man appear angry. Interesting, right? Even more interesting, the study found that the absence of eyebrows rendered people unrecognizable, even more so than if their eyes were missing. Impossible, you say? Take a look for yourself. Would you be able to identify Richard Nixon or Winona Ryder without their eyebrows? (Keep in mind, the people in the study didn’t see all three images at the same time):
Somewhere along the line, someone figured out that it would make a great Internet fad to Photoshop the eyebrows off of famous folks to see what they look like without them. What do you think? Does Barack Obama look the same sans eyebrows?
For more celebrities without eyebrows, check out collegecandy.com’s slideshow. And now that you know just how important they are, give your eyebrows a little love.