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Eyebrow follicles permanently damaged?
  • I began plucking my eyebrows as a young teenager (around 13), and over the years I made them thinner and thinner. I'm 22 now, and I've slowly realized that they look ridiculous. I've been letting them grow in now for 7 weeks and honestly have not plucked at all in that time (and I've been looking pretty...shaggy). There are two spots in each brow that are not growing back well--the "front" above the tear duct of the eye (which was also what I remember that I started plucking first). Those patches basically look like a bunch of random hairs with lots of space around them!
    I've heard that sometimes over plucked eyebrow hair will never grow back because the follicle has been damaged. Is this true? Or should I just give it more time? I feel like I've scarred myself for life!
    TIA
  • It's true that over plucked eyebrows might not grow back but 7 weeks isn't long enough to draw any conclusions. Give it more time. If you did scar yourself for life, at least you're in good company. I think we've all plucked our eyebrows into oblivion at some point.
     
  • i tweezed mine wiehn i was 12 and the ones above my brow never grew back. but it might be because your brow changed shape. sometimes you can go from high arch to flat lines in your adolescense. my mom had uni brow and now they are so far away.
  • My mom was a beautiction for years before getting married. She's always told me that if you pull a hair out by the roots enough times eventually the root dies and the hair won't grow back.
    Seems to be true for my eyebrows which she started waxing for me in elementry school as I had a major monobrow going on. Wish it was true of the dark black wire-like hairs growing out of my chin that I have to wax weekly and tweeze daily! *mutters* Pay over a $1,000 in laser treatments and still have them growing....
  • Gals over on MakeUp Alley swear that putting Castor oil on your brows daily will help them grow back in. I don't know if its true or not, but Castor oil is so cheap, it might be worth giving it a try.
  • Thanks for all the responses. I have also heard anecdotal evidence that castor oil will help, so I may try it since it is so inexpensive. I've also heard of using Rogaine, but I don't think I'd go that far. JamiSings, I hear ya with the stubbornness of unwanted hair: areas I've plucked for years (dark stray nipple hairs!) come back faithfully in two weeks, but nooo, not my eyebrows! Frustrating.
  • Yes, rogaine does work for eyebrows. Makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic recommends applying it to the eyebrow to regrow back the hair.
  • Bethe - I remember as a kid when they first found a "cure" for sweaty palms they talked about it on the news, saying that they actually would suck out the excess sweat glands. That's about the time I realized how hairy I am compared to other women. Most women can skip a day of shaving. Not me, I have to shave every single day. I kept thinking "If they can do that for sweat glands, why can't they do that for excess hair?" I mean, they do hair transplants, right? So why not hair removals?
  • don't know if it'll help with the growing, but i use castor oil on my lashes and they got thicker longer and darker. the same for my eye brows - they just look lush from it.
  • I'm using myself as a guinea pig for the great lash experiment. As I've started using castor oil on lashes only. My eyebrows are ok, I never really tweezered when I was younger. My eyebrows didn't figure in my list of things to change; spottinness, hair were much more my concerns ;) So far, no real change but I'm not fully in the habit yet. But I have noticed that the next day if I use it at night, mascara seems to make them longer. So just by conditioning them it might be making a change. I know the Brains will advise that I should do one eye only in order to have a control lash, but I thought I'd go for both and if I think there's a real, discernable difference stop using it on one eye to see if they reduce. I just don't fancy looking like Malcolm McDowell from Clockwork Orange, even for a few weeks though ;)
  • One high-end salon where I've had my eyebrows waxed has told me that some people have had great success with.. ...*swallows* ....eyelash enhancers!