Eyebrows serve many functions in our culture today, from beauty to nonverbal communication. You can tell a lot about how a person is feeling based on their eyebrows. Different facial expressions show emotions, feelings, and meanings, while our eyebrows exaggerate those expressions. Take cartoons, for example. Furrowed eyebrows express anger, and high-arched eyebrows express surprise. But what else do our eyebrows do for us?

We, as humans, rely on our sight more than any other sense. Eyebrows help keep sweat, rain, and other moisture out of our eyes. With no eyebrows, water can get in and seriously blur our vision. In addition, our eyebrows may also deflect debris and protect our eyes from the sun. As a species, we slowly evolved to lose most of our body hair, yet our eyebrows remained. Some scientists believe that if we didn’t have eyebrows, something else would have evolved to help this situation, perhaps incredibly thick eyelashes or an overly thick skull that forms a ledge above our eyes.

Eye protection is vital! Before you pluck some extra hairs to form the perfect thin eyebrow shape or even consider eyebrow tattoos (shaving off your eyebrows and tattooing the arch—ouch!), remember the importance of that hair above your eyes and how it helps you see clearly and comfortably every day.