What happened to my eyebrows?!
The loss of eyebrows can be devastating to a woman.
The eyebrows are a visible communicator (think body language) showing surprise, anger, sadness and even concern. Eyebrows are also an essential defining feature of a woman’s face, think of them as a “frame” for your eyes. Thinning, sparse brows can be concerning, especially considering the fashionable big, lush eyebrows that are the current style.
So what happened to your eyebrows?
Top 3 Reasons for Brow Loss:
- Thyroid issues
The loss of eyebrows, a.k.a. Superciliary madarosis, has many causes, but low thyroid is the first one that most clinicians think of. Millions of women have low thyroid, which can interfere with your hair growth cycle. This results in hair loss — especially noticeable on the outer portion / tail of your eyebrows. Other symptoms of low thyroid include thinning hair, dry skin, fatigue, and weight gain. Your doctor can perform simple blood tests to check thyroid function.
2. Aging
Besides the obvious wrinkles, thinning hair is common as we age. Not only can the follicles produce thinner individual hairs, they can slow down production too, for less hair overall. This doesn’t just affect that head of hair, it can involve our eyebrows too, resulting in sparse or patchy, thinner and less defined eyebrows.
3. The 90’s gave us lots of things including Platform shoes, Gameboys and uber thin eyebrows. Think Drew Barrymore, Gwen Stefani and Cyndi Lauper. We plucked, and plucked….and plucked some more. Plucking can cause trauma to the follicle, resulting in loss of hair from that follicle. The final result? Partial or even full brow loss

If you have thinning or loss of eyebrows but still don’t know what’s happening with your brows, there are a number of medical conditions that can impact the hair follicles and growth such as alopecia, chemotherapy, HIV/AIDS, trachoma, malignant eyelid tumors, discoid lupus, scleroderma, and hypothyroidism. These require a physician evaluation and diagnosis, so talk with your doctor about your concerns.
Mary Alexander is CEO of A Decade Younger and Wake Up Made Up, located in Pensacola Florida. She is a Master’s prepared Registered Nurse, artist, and permanent makeup specialist who has been creating beautiful eyebrows since 2004.
