Originally published 2021-03-02.
Eldina Jaganjac, a tutor from Copenhagen, stopped removing her facial hair in March 2020, when the first pandemic lockdown kept most people at home. She let her unibrow grow back and stopped shaving her upper lip. A year later her story spread through British and international media, partly because of one practical side effect she described: the look helps her steer clear of people, including potential dates, who judge others by appearance.
Her experience touches on questions many women quietly ask themselves. Why is facial hair on women treated as something to hide? How common is it really? And when is it simply part of normal variation rather than a sign that something needs medical attention? Here is her story, followed by the wider context.
Why she stopped plucking
Like many women, Jaganjac had spent years keeping her brows narrow and her face smooth. When lockdown began and there was nowhere to go, she simply stopped. What started as a break from a routine turned into a decision to leave her face as it grows naturally.
In an interview reported by the British site Unilad, she explained that the change made her notice how narrow the accepted options had been. She was 31 at the time of that coverage. In her words: "Before I let my unibrow grow out, I did feel like there were extremely limited options to how women were supposed to look."
She contrasted this with men, whose untrimmed brows or stubble rarely draw any comment. Over time, she said, she had learned to monitor her own appearance so closely that she avoided going outside without groomed eyebrows and skipped the gym if her legs were not shaved. Letting the hair grow was a way of putting her attention on her work and goals instead of on how others might see her.
Compliments, stares and comments in the street
The reaction has been mixed. Jaganjac has said that she receives compliments from both women and men, often from people who find the look striking or who admire the confidence behind it. She has also faced stares and remarks in public, and she described the hostile comments as coming almost entirely from men, some of whom shouted at her to pluck her brows.
Her response to the abuse is notably calm. She has described it as uncomfortable at first, but she points out that strangers who yell at her are unlikely to cross her path again, and that their opinions have little bearing on her life. That attitude is part of why her story resonated: it offers a way of handling unwanted comments without either hiding or fighting back.
Appearance as a filter for bad dates
The detail that made headlines was her view that her natural face works as a screening tool. Someone who is put off by a unibrow, or who feels entitled to comment on it, is likely to be judgemental in other ways too. By not altering her appearance, she says, she spends less time with people she would not want to be around anyway, and that includes suitors.
It is a reasonable point even for people who do remove their facial hair. Dating advice often focuses on making a good first impression, but there is value in being seen as you actually are early on. A partner who accepts your everyday self is more likely to be a good long-term match than one who was drawn to a version that takes hours of upkeep to maintain.
How common is facial hair in women?
Far more common than advertising suggests. Depending on how it is defined, around 40 percent of women have some degree of visible facial hair, according to the summary of medical literature on Wikipedia's hirsutism page. Fine hair on the upper lip, chin or between the brows is a normal part of human variation and differs widely between families and ethnic backgrounds.
The unibrow in particular has a strong genetic component. It is linked to a gene called PAX3, and in most people it is simply an inherited trait with no health significance.
Hirsutism is a different matter. Doctors use the term for coarse, dark hair growing in a typically male pattern, such as across the chin, chest or back. It affects roughly 5 to 15 percent of women, and the most common causes are polycystic ovary syndrome and idiopathic hirsutism, meaning no specific cause is found. If hair growth changes suddenly, appears well after puberty, or comes with other symptoms such as irregular periods, it is worth talking to a doctor. Otherwise, whether to remove facial hair is purely a personal choice.
The unibrow across cultures and history
The idea that a woman's brows must be separated is far from universal. In parts of Oman, a joined brow is considered attractive, and among some Baluchi Omani women a dark line is drawn across the brows as part of makeup. In Tajikistan, women have traditionally used the juice of a local plant called usma to darken and connect their eyebrows, and kohl pencils serve the same purpose in cities.
In Europe and the Americas, the trend has long run the other way, with plucking, waxing and threading treated as routine. The best-known exception is the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, who made her unibrow a defining feature of her self-portraits and is now one of the most recognised faces in modern art. More recently, the Greek-Cypriot model Sophia Hadjipanteli has become known for keeping hers. Jaganjac is part of a wider, gradual shift in which more people choose to leave their brows as they are.
Sharing the message online
After the media coverage, Jaganjac's Instagram following grew to around 10,000 people, and she used the attention to send a broader message. In one post, she wrote that she was glad her point had come across, though the attention had been overwhelming. She reminded followers that people naturally look different and that a world where everyone looked the same would be strange. Her suggestion was not that every woman should stop plucking, but that each person should ask who they are really making the choice for.
(The Instagram post originally embedded here is no longer available.)
She ended that post with a line she said she liked even though she is not usually fond of quotes: "Don't let your mind bully your body."
Choice, not a new rule
Stories like this one are sometimes framed as a battle between women who remove their body hair and women who do not. That framing misses Jaganjac's point. Choosing to pluck, wax or shave is just as valid as choosing not to. What matters is that the decision is made freely rather than out of fear of comments, and that a woman's appearance is not treated as a measure of her hygiene, femininity, politics or worth as a partner.
If you are thinking about changing your own routine, a few practical ideas can help:
- Try a short break, as she did during lockdown, and notice how you feel without the habit.
- Pay attention to whose reactions you are worried about, and whether their opinions really matter to you.
- Keep the choice reversible in your mind. Hair grows back, and you can change course at any time.
- If unexpected hair growth worries you, a doctor can check for an underlying cause.
Jaganjac's decision began as a small change made at home. It became a reminder that how we look is ours to decide, and that the people worth keeping close will accept that decision either way.
Sources: Unilad: interview with Eldina Jaganjac; Eldina Jaganjac on Instagram; Wikipedia: Hirsutism; Wikipedia: Unibrow.
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