Proof That Even Celebrities Suffer From Overplucked Brows

Oh, the recklessness of youth. Everyone remembers the first time they went ham on their eyebrows, whether it was an attempt to emulate your older sister's perfectly tweezed arches (without your mom's knowledge, of course) or getting an equally clueless friend to wax them with the drugstore's finest at-home strips (ouch).

Perhaps eyebrows were so alluring to us as teens because they were less intimidating than other body hair; or perhaps it was their ability to change the way our face looked — even if it rarely worked out the way we wanted. The '00s was a particularly rough patch, with celebrities and mere mortals alike launching a full-throttle attack on their eyebrows.

Our unscientific theory: In the '90s, genuinely cool women like Drew Barrymore and Janet Jackson successfully worked pencil-thin brows, which led to a generation of teens hacking away at their own with whatever tool was to hand. By the time the '00s came around, we'd gone too far. There were patches, length issues, regrowth impossibilities, and straight-up getting hooked on the oh-so-satisfying pluck.

With big, bold, and bushy the shape du jour, it's a frustrating time for teens of the '90s and '00s. Regrowth isn't easy, and for some of us, all hope of rocking thick, luscious brows died with our very first Tweezerman. But your outlook is about to change: The hilarious Instagram account @historyofoverplucking is here to soothe your nonexistent brow woes and prove that, actually, less can be more. Who needs gels and tints and threading?

Click through to see the best examples of teeny, tiny, skinny brows, modeled by the coolest women out there. They'll make you feel so much better about the damage that's already been done — but don't even think about picking up the tweezers again. That was the old you, remember?