Eyebrows - are they a window on the soul?

Recently I have become very aware of eyebrows. This will sound strange to anyone who has dark/bushy/beetling/caterpillar-like/mono eyebrows for whom looking in a mirror has always had to take into account these hairy forms that edge your eye socket. For me, however, and other fair haired people, eyebrows have never been a defining feature, far less something which needs to be taken into account in your personal face map. It is only now as age has become a somewhat significant factor in my appearance that I have become aware of the role they can play if managed correctly. Yes, age, that hideous gremlin in the bottom of the box of life that we all loathe and yet have to be grateful for since the alternative is worse.........

What age does to the eyebrows is to either thicken or thin them (whatever you would least like), coarsen them, and horror of horrors introduce the element of grey. Yes, your eyebrows can go grey. This immediately adds easily 10 years to your wrinkles.

As a person challenged by this gremlin, and moreover suffering from the invisibility that gender creates as time wears on (except where access to your bank account is required when you are all too visible) , I was horrified to realise that this might happen to me. A friend told me there were various answers - dying (oops! spelt that wrong, I mean dyeing), threading or tattooing. Yes! You could put yourself in the hands of a friendly tattooist and have not only new eyebrows but a whole new expression. Of course over time that expression would change. As your skin slowly drooped down into your eyelids so your expression would become more dour. But fair enough! You would probably feel that way, anyway, so what if your face shows it!

I have not yet decided what action I should take and am still considering it, but what I have become aware of is other people's eyebrows. Just take a look around you - there are poems written on Robert Pattinsons eyebrows (well, not quite, but definitely youtube films); could you stomach Jeremy Clarkson without his horrible bushy growths wriggling about on his forehead adding irony to his oh-so-witty words? and what about Tony Blair, surely we responded as a nation to his furrowed brow with those beautifully arched, sympathetic brows calling on us to just understand what a brilliant job he was doing for us despite our ingratitude. Gordon Brown simply cannot compete - look how wild his are, grey and sort of unkempt. If a man cannot control his eyebrows, can he control the country? Tom Cruise should inspire him with his delicately shaped eyebrows, reflecting the refined nature of his handsome face - he is a man who can save the planet and make millions in the process. And what of Mr Spock? Surely when his creators came up with those upwardly pointing, excitingly exuberant eyebrows they were suggesting the hidden passions of a being who would always come up with surprises no matter how pointy his ears. Nations of middle aged women immediately fell in love..........

Furthermore a glance at any portraits of the past or present will demonstrate how artists have engrossed themselves in the rendering of the eyebrow as a true indicator of personality. Dame Judy Dench, all dressed in white on a white background, manages to suggest all sorts of archness through the refinement of those carefully delineated and possibly tattooed (ok, ok, but she is quite old, can they be real?) speaking, lines of finely plucked hair. They act alone. I haven't looked at Joanna Lumley - but surely they played a part in getting all those gurkha's what they wanted? Gordon, confronted with her, must have felt a certain humility at someone so in control, so able to master the technicalities of the eyebrow.

So, I still haven't decided what to do about mine but I would recommend everyone to look in the mirror objectively and just take note of the subliminal message that your eyebrows are sending out into an unsuspecting world - you didn't get that job? Go home and pluck those brows. That salesman was rude to you? Darken up your brows, use them to enhance your authority. The bank manager refused you the loan? Practice the eyebrow wrinkle, it works every time. Well, unless you are of a certain age and gender. Then you could say, what's the point if they don't see me they're hardly going to see my eyebrows. But never, say never. The eyebrow is here to stay.