I can recall sitting in history class being told Mona Lisa didn’t have eyebrows. My professor explained they had different standards of beauty 500 years ago. I believed it. My teenage mind conjured up weird scenarios in which girls at my school began re-adopting this trend. Bell bottoms… Modrobes… it didn’t seem too far-fetched.
My mind wandered further. I imagined women in Shakespearean times taking time out of their day to shave their eyebrows. I imagined conversations among women about how often this needed to be done. I forced it all to make sense and eventually it did. Every time I saw the Mona Lisa, I was reminded of the Naked-Face Beauty Hypothesis. That’s not an official hypothesis … but its what I call it.