Eyebrows help to give definition to your face and your eyes. Have you ever noticed how, by over plucking just one or two hair from your eyebrow, you face looks radically different. As any good makeup artist will vouch, a well-groomed eyebrow not only makes you look more spruced up but it can change your entire look. You can correct flaws like droopy eyes or close-set eyes by grooming your eyebrows to the right shape. However, for shaping your eyebrows, first you need to have thick brows. Any shaping or grooming of the eyebrows is not possible unless you have thick brows to start with.
Unfortunately there are many women who have scanty eyebrow growth which hinders them from trying out brow shaping techniques. If you too suffer from less than luxurious growth of eyebrow hair, then you must have tried out many creams and serums to promote hair growth. A natural alternative to these creams and serums is castor oil. Castor oil has been used for many beauty and health related issues and now it has come under focus as the next big thing to promote eyebrow hair growth. But do these claims actually have a grain of truth? Let's know more about it.
Does Castor Oil Help Eyebrows Grow?
Castor oil is derived from the seeds of the castor plant and it is a pale yellow colored oil. It is used in many cosmetic and pharmaceutical products. It is often used as a laxative in holistic medicine. The use of castor oil for inducing labor is also quite prevalent although it has come under a lot of flak in recent times. However, the most noteworthy use of castor oil is in cosmetics and makeup products. Many shampoos, conditioners and lipsticks as well as beauty soaps contain castor oil. In alternative health fields, castor oil has been used to promote healthy growth and to prevent hair fall. There are many people who claim that by using castor oil, their hair has become shiny, more manageable and thick. Although castor oil might help in deep conditioning your hair because it is high in linoleic acid and ricinoleic acid which are essential fatty acids, there is no scientific evidence to support that it promotes hair growth.
There are many aestheticians and beauty gurus who claim that castor oil helps in eyebrow growth and thickens sparse eyebrows. But the fact remains that there is absolutely no scientific data to support this claim. Castor oil is a high viscosity oil and it can penetrate deep into the skin because of its low molecular weight. But how this will help in promoting the growth of hair is not clear. Each strand of hair, be it hair in your eyebrows or head, consists of an individual hair follicle. The hair follicle is located deep inside the skin and as newer hair cells grow inside the hair follicle, they push out the older cells through the skin. This is what is visible to us as hair. Applying castor oil externally does not stimulate the hair follicles which would induce eyebrow hair to grow. So, if castor oil does not stimulate the hair follicles in any way to make new cells inside the follicles, there is no way in which it can promote hair growth.
There are some people who claim that castor oil has helped them in growing luxurious and thick eyelashes. Whereas there are many who have asserted that castor oil has not made any difference in the thickness of their eyebrows and in fact has made their under eyes puffy. Till date there has not been any scientific or controlled studies done that show that castor oil helps in eyebrow growth. So, until there are tests done to show that castor oil is effective in growing scanty eyebrows, opt to fill them up with a good eyebrow pencil instead.
