Eyebrows & Hair

[blackfrostqueen]

My boyfriend asked me today, why my eyebrows were a different color than my hair. And honestly, I couldn't figure out the answer to that question - my eyebrows have always been a different color then my hair, no matter if the hair is dyed or not. My eyebrows are black (almost jet) and my natural hair color is dark-ash blonde.

So today I was wandering about wal-mart looking at peoples eyebrows! And though, most of the world out there is dyed blondes (at least in my area) even though brunettes had slightly different shaded eyebrows.

Does anyone know why this is?
Why would a natural dark-ash blonde have black eyebrows? Or a brunette have a slightly lighter colored brow (light brown)?

[prosperina]

My natural color is medium strawberry blond and my eyebrows are very pale blond with a few darker strands here and there. This seems to be the case for so many!

[florenonite]

I'm not sure what my natural colour is ... a dirty blonde we'll say (it gets bleached in the summer so it becomes quite blonde, but my ex once looked at the top of my head and said 'your hair's actually brown!' so I'm not really sure). Regardless, my eyebrows are a bit lighter than my roots.

[Samara Morgan]

I think it's mainly to do with inheritance :agree: Does anyone in your family have this sort of eyebrow-hair combination?

[MissHair]

My eyebrows are jet black and my hair is like medium-dark brown.. Dont know why.. I was born with black hair to starters... maybe my eyebrows just didnt change..

[Ohio Sky]

My brows are way lighter than my hair. My BF has black hair, eyebrows and moustache but his goatee is red, just in the front. Were not sure where the red came from :confused:

[Islandgrrl]

Hmmm...I'm redhead (natural + henna for good measure) and my eyebrows are a very light brownish blonde. I cheat and dye them a a bit darker and then henna them when I do my hair. My eyelashes are just about transparent. I love mascara!

[sapphire-o]

I'm sure there are different DNAs controlling eyebrow colors. :) Like beard for men are quite often differently colored from their hair. My DH has dark blond hair, his beard is a mix of black, blond and red colors. Nearly everybody I know has darker eyelashes than their head hair.

[SaveTheTapirs]

I've heard that, from an evolutionary standpoint, eyebrows are important not just for keeping sweat and stuff out of our eyes, but also because they help with non-verbal communication. You can tell how someone is feeling partly by their eyebrows, and you can tell from a fair distance whether they're friend or foe. Maybe a lot of people have darker eyebrows because they need to be prominent and easy to see in order to serve their purpose.

[Unnamed]

I'm another dark ashy blonde with black eyebrows (either black-black or jet-black--they worked well with my dyed black hair :rolleyes: ).

I just figure it's just genes. I can't really compare to other relatives, as I'm the only dark blonde--everyone else has more clearly brown or blonde hair, not 'that colour that's not quite either'.

[Anje]

I'm a natural light auburn who hennas (my profile pic is pre-henna, incidentally), with brown-black eyebrows and lashes. TMI/FWIW: the hair in my pits is also nearly black, but the hair on my other bits is red like my head hair.

[Curlsgirl]

I am a light brown hair naturally with blondish parts even without the chemical stuff but my eyebrows and even hair on my arms and legs has always been light blonde. Go figure! I like it though because that means it doesn't show up as much! Now my eyelashes being blond is not a good thing but oh well you can't have everything!

[kissedbyfyre]

Couldn't say why. I'm a natural redhead and unlike most redheads that have super light almost blond eyebrows, mine are a darker brown..... they just aren't full enough due to years of plucking so I usually color them in a dark red color.

[kwaniesiam]

I'm pretty sure most eyebrows aren't supposed to match the rest of your hair, like often happens with men and beards. My friend has auburn hair and his beard is a bright gingery color, doesn't match at all but is totally natural. :shrug:

My eyebrows are a brownish, I have dyed them in the past, red, black, etc. I think they match my natural color well enough, its hard to tell. I have about 2 inches of roots and the rest henna red.

[FrannyG]

I went to school with a girl who had (naturally) white blonde hair and very dark almost-black eyebrows. I was an interesting an highly unusual look.

That was an extreme, but I find that many peoples' brows differ greatly from their hair colour.

[Requiax]

I'm a redhead, with auburn eyebrows and eyelashes.

My dad with the red hair has dark brown eyebrows and strawberry blond eyelashes. :confused:

[Blueglass]

Dark blonde hair with light blonde streaks brown eyebrows and lashes. In between brown and blonde. 80 percent blonde 20 percent brunnett. Parents are similar.

[Celebrian]

Mid honey-blonde hair colour until about eleven years old, then darkening to warmish mid-brown. Eyebrows? Dark brown all through the years, and eyelashes dark-brown with lighter tips.

[jojo]

mmm. maybe im strange but my eyebrows match my hair perfectly, however my arm and leg hairs are white blond...

[squiggyflop]

i have auburnish brown hair on my head... my eyebrows are brown and darker than my hair... actually come to think of it every place that has hair on it on my body has a different color...
this thread made me think of my poor brother... he has bright red hair and blonde eyebrows and eyelashes.. his beard is red but his mustash grows in a weird light strawberry blonde...

[Velvettt]

Dark ash blonde or light ash brown head hair, while every other hair on my body including eyebrows is black. My eyebrows were the same light blonde as my hair till I hit puberty. Then my eyebrows grew in black and my hair darkened to dark blonde.

[Masara]

My hair is lightish, reddish brown and my eyebrows/eyelashes/body hairs... are black.

[shellblue1]

My hair is naturally dark ash blonde and my eyebrows are almost black too.

[Phalaenopsis]

My hair is light brown with a "golden" shine, so sometimes I look blond. And my eyebrows and lashes are as black as they can be. Some people think I bleach my hair, especially in the summer when my hair is getting blondish.

[Katze]

My hair is dark blonde/light brown depending on the light, but my eyebrows are platinum blonde, with some darker ashy bits towards the middle. Lately I've been stopping plucking them so that they look fuller, and so I have more to apply mascara to when i dress up and wear makeup. Oh, my eyelashes are mostly blonde, too, giving me a pale, albino look unless I wear mascara (mascara is my daily makeup).

I wish I had darker brows than my hair, or that my hair were as light as my brows. The difference is really quite large, but it seems to just be the way I am built. No one in my family has this, either; I'm the blondest of us all. My hair was white blonde as a kid and slowly darkened.

The rest of my body hair is mixed; dark in some places, clear blonde in others.

People come in all shapes and sizes AND colors, despite the cosmetics woman telling me once that my eyebrows HAVE TO be "two shades darker" than my hair, whatever THAT is supposed to mean. :P

[ilovelonghair]

I don't know why it is, but hair can be really strange. My partner has every hair color possible in his beard! He's dark blonde and has black eyebrows.
I myself have the same color eyebrows as my hair color, I dye them darker, but I have dark eyelashes of my own.

[Anlbe]

I used to know a German family where all the women had very pale blonde hair and dark brown almost black eyebrows from childhood. They said it was quite a common combination in the part of southern Germany they came from.

[Daoine Sidhe]

My hair is darkblonde and my eyebrows are a little lighter. The little hairs on my arms and my legs are platinum blonde.

[Bloodflower]

Can I join the club? I also have dark ash blonde / light ash brown hair and black eyebrows. I have always thought that my face looked slightly "wrong" because hair and eyebrows don't match. This is why I chose to dye my hair black, just like my eyebrows. Although this is far from my natural color, people who have never seen my light hair always take my black hair for real. I've been told that because of my black eyebrows they wouldn't have expected me to have light hair.

My brother also has this hair / eybrow combination, but his hair is even lighter than minde. Both my parents have black hair.

[Alaia]

I have undecided blonde/brown hair and my eyebrows are black.

The eyebrows and eyelashes are the only hairs on my entire body that are black. My leg and arm hair are so blonde you can't really see them. My head hair goes a similar colour when I'm exposed to sunlight.

[aisling]

blackfrostqueen, I'm a little like you, I was very blonde as a child, I've darkened to dark blond but I've always had these dark brown eyebrows. As a child they looked almost black against my blonde hair.

I do think that many times, not always of course, the natural eyebrows are a little darker than the hair. It's not at all uncommon.

[HeatherAngela]

I must be the not normal one. My eyebrows are the same darkish ash blond as my hair and my eyelashes are also blond (which totally sucks!!!).

[Katze]

Bloodflower, your reasoning is exactly why I bleached my hair blonde for so many years. Not only does it liven up my complexion, but with see-through eyelashes and eyebrows, it really looks natural, and good, on me. but it was stopping me from getting long hair.

[atlantaz3]

I think a lot of people pencil in darker brows to frame ther face. Here in the south we have an expression the carpet and drapes don't match! Of course that usually referred to a bleached blonde and other non visiable (Britney not included) hair areas!
I've gone both ways - when my hair was bleached they used to bleach the brows. I have also had my brows dyed - I looked like Groucho Marx and could not wait for that to go away.
Now they are what they are probably a bit darker than my dark blonde hair.

[fleurdelis]

Hmm, my hair is middle to lighter brown (here in Colombia they consider it orange...) but my eyebrows are dark brown and very thick. I really wish they would be lighter because they are odly shaped and make me look kind of angry...

[Bloodflower]

Bloodflower, your reasoning is exactly why I bleached my hair blonde for so many years. Not only does it liven up my complexion, but with see-through eyelashes and eyebrows, it really looks natural, and good, on me. but it was stopping me from getting long hair.

Yes, unfortunately the years of chemical dye have also taken their toll on my hair. I was very happy when I found out how to dye my hair black with indigo.

[Isilme]

my brows and my natural haircolour are the exakt match, ashy dark blonde/light brown. My body hair is an entirely different story...
A friend of mine has blonde hair, really fine, but her eyebrows are pitch black, thick and coarse.

[maskedrose]

My hair is honey blonde with some auburn and strawberry and my eyebrows are a mix of honey, platnum and auburn. My eyelashes are white at the base and tips with a kind of golden middle - very strange. Mascara is definitely my friend! All of my other body hair is white blonde, which is quite nice.

[Alaskanheart]

Im a natural med-dark blond ashy as well, but my eyebrows are light blonde, so I shade them in.

[eadwine]

My eyebrows are the same color as my hair I think, the lashes are jet black and so is the rest of my bodily hair. Ahem *giggles*

[Feisty Redhead]

Here in the south we have an expression the carpet and drapes don't match!

I always hear something similar but that has nothing to do with whether or not eye brows match the hair on your head... :lol:

Once again I'm a complete oddball. My brows are the same color as my hair, perhaps maybe just the slightest bit lighter, but the difference in shade is so small you really can't tell unless you get really close and really look for it.

[HappyHaley]

My mother always said that it was part of my heritage that I have blonde hair and brown eyebrows and lashes. She said that's the usual look from Norway and Germany (part of my heritage). She grew up with Swedes in Minnesota and said they usually had blonde hair and brows and lashes.

~Haley

[Jannike]

My mother always said that it was part of my heritage that I have blonde hair and brown eyebrows and lashes. She said that's the usual look from Norway and Germany (part of my heritage). She grew up with Swedes in Minnesota and said they usually had blonde hair and brows and lashes.

~Haley

:rolling: I'm from Sweden and my hair is a light golden blonde (I think) and my brows have almost always been darker than my hair (I was born with brown hair).
I think they're a very dark blonde or some kind of brown that's not too dark.
My birth hair was really dark brown. Maybe people born with dark hair tend to have darker brows when grown up? I know many blonde people are born with blonde hair too.

[Dvips]

Yes - there is defintely a group of people who have the blonde hair and dark eyebrows. I've had a few friends with that natural combination. I can't help with the "ethnic origin" though, as one friend was adopted and the other didn't know her family's ancestry.

[Kallisti]

Me too, my natural color is a reddish blonde, but my brows are a medium brown. Noticeably not the same color.
My husband has the opposite, his hair is dark blonde, but his brows are a very light blonde. His beard is red, with a blonder mustache. He doesn't match at all, I call him a calico. :D

[cassie_g]

My eyebrows are only slightly darker than my hair at the roots. My hair gets lighter the closer it is to the ends..

[boukje]

I don't want to sound strange but my eyebrows are way lighter than my hair. So I find it funny to read many people have darker eyebrows than hair.

My brows look almost grey (yuck) and my hair is light brown (with a grey tone over it).

[cuddledumplin]

I went to school with a guy with brown hair who had white brows and lashes, so all sorts of combinations are possible. It is genetic though, but I'm not sure how well you can judge women's "natural" brow colour: there are also a lot of women who use eyebrow pencils or powder or bleach their brows.

[rhanee]

I have natural red hair, my eyebrows are a mixture of blond, red and brown.
My eyelashes are mixed to. Some of them are even light at the root, but dark at the tip..or the other way around.

My father used to have very darkbrown, almost black hair but his beard was red.

[Katze]

I don't know if I buy the 'ethnicity' look - people are all so mixed up from waaaay back.

I'm of Norwegian, British (Northern English, Cornish) and SW German heritage. My German family were dark haired, black eyed, and olive skinned, like my sister. My Norwegian grandmother and her parents had grey-green eyes, light brows, and slightly darker (dark blonde-light brown) hair. I'm a dead ringer for her, up to and including the weird eye color, very pale skin that gets red easily, and the clear, pale eyebrows.

My (Westphalian-Lippisch) German boyfriend, probably descended from Saxons and Slavs, has almost the exact same hair color as me, but a touch lighter and more gold. He passes as blonde, I don't. His beard is a mix of everything from red to platinum to black, and his eyebrows are mostly dark brown. So, lighter hair than me, but darker brows, and bright blue eyes. He's also got a very different complexion - naturally brown, tans easily. His brother is pale with blue eyes and dark brown hair.

Even within my family my sister has the dark coloration, my brother is dark but with some blonde in his hair and a dark red beard. Both have dark, almost black, eyes and eyelashes.

So I don't think you can generalize based on ethnicity!

Oh, I also know another German (Münsterlander) family where one sister is dark, one reddish auburn haired, then the brother has light brown-reddish hair with clear pale eyebrows. Another mixed bag, even though they are farmers and don't get out much.

[JCFantasy23]

Eyebrows and hair match sometimes, but not often. My eyebrows are slightly lighter than my hair shade.

[HappyHaley]

So I don't think you can generalize based on ethnicity!


Oh I was just sharing what my mother observed about Northern Europeans. I've got Norwegian, German, Irish, and Scottish heritage and somehow I ended up with white hair when I was born!

Up to a point I'd say you can't generalize, but I've never seen a blonde Asian, neither has my Asian husband. Bleached Asians don't count. :p

~Haley

[zift]

No I certainly think you can generalize based on ethnicity ,that's what you can do generalize. I can look around and say that most of the people in my country generally have dark eyebrows while someone at scandinavia cannot say so. As you can say most of people in Japan generally have black/dark brown hair but not in Ireland.
I have a reddish dark brown color naturally but my eyebrows are thick,long and black.

[Bucatini]

My eyebrows are the same exact dark brown as my hair but they look different because they are totally matte, not at all shiny or reflective like the hair on my head. Weird.

[Funsizedbaby]

My hair is a medium blondish brown and my eyebrows are dark brown with a few little reddish blonde hairs in them.

[longhairedfairy]

I've known several people with naturally light hair and naturally dark eyebrows, but I don't know why there's such a big difference.

[Romereloh]

I myself have ash blond hair with dark eyebrows. I have a friend with natural, bright blond hair and he has black eyebrows! It's pretty cool.