Happy Halloween! To celebrate the day, we dug up a bit of obscure beauty history to horrify you. In this millennium, if you are unsatisfied with sparse eyebrows just swipe on some RapidBrow, but in the 1700s, women “enhanced” their look by covering their brows with patches of mouse fur. Yep. Mouse fur.

The simultaneous popularity of powdered grey hair and lead-based cosmetics during the 18th century are responsible for bringing about the mouse fur brow trend. When used over time, the lead products caused hair-loss resulting in a receding hair-line and a bare brow.

Conveniently, mouse fur is grey and mice were plentiful. As early as 1703, people were trapping mice and using their fur for thick, grey, artificial eyebrows. Sadly, the glue wasn’t as strong as today’s adhesives and a lady could be caught with her brows askew. Unhygienic and embarrassing.

Shannon C., Lashing Out