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Unibrow

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The artist Frida Kahlo often portrayed herself with a notable unibrow.

A unibrow or monobrow, medically known as a synophrys, refers to a "confluence of eyebrows"; i.e. the presence of abundant hair between the eyebrows, so that they seem to converge to form one long eyebrow.

The words unibrow and monobrow are now in the Oxford English Dictionary, and unibrow was added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in 2006. Medical dictionaries, such as Dorland's Medical Dictionary, now contain the word synophrys.

The unibrow conventionally has negative associations in Western culture, and is the reason why many people remove excess hair between the eyebrows.

Beauty culture

In Western perception, a unibrow may make a person seem fierce, grumpy, or over-serious, so much so that that the unibrow has become something of a cliché in fiction, especially with cartoon characters.(see below).

Among Western women, the region between the brows is often plucked, waxed, or treated with electrolysis or other forms of depilation. Unibrow separation is often the only form of eyebrow grooming (a stereotypically feminine behavior) among men. However, in some non-Western cultures this facial hair does not have a stigma, and may even be seen as a sign of feminine beauty, as in Turkey and the Caucasus.[1]

The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo often depicted herself with an exaggerated unibrow and a thin moustache, which was seen as unconventional and purposely unflattering by Western audiences.

There have apparently been no serious scientific studies of the unibrow in culture or whether certain ethnic groups are more prone to developing a unibrow or not (or less likely to pluck them or not).

Science and superstition

Medically, a synophrys is associated with some cephalic disorders, particularly Cornelia de Lange syndrome. However, the vast majority of persons with a unibrow have no such condition, and the connection to developmental disabilities is wildly exaggerated in the popular imagination.

Unibrows have been the subject of various misconceptions and superstitions. Victorian criminologist Cesare Lombroso identified unibrows as a sign of criminality [2] (later discredited). In earlier times they were associated with werewolves; in the 1984 fantasy film The Company of Wolves, the grandmother (played by Angela Lansbury) comments to her granddaughter:

"Beware of windfallen apples and of men whose eyebrows meet" (she is later eaten by the werewolf).

Famous people with a unibrow

Russian Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov had a prominent unibrow.

Entertainment

Politics

Sport

Other

Fictional characters with a unibrow

File:Tv sesame street Beautiful Day.jpg
Unibrows are popular in puppets on the television show Sesame Street. Here we see the "Beautiful Day" monster and Bert.

See also

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