Sarah Michelle Gellar Regrets Her ’90s Eyebrows: ‘My Brows Looked Like Sperm’

Sarah Michelle Gellar hopes others will learn the lesson that “less is always more” from her beauty mistakes — especially when it comes to eyebrows.

The actress, who will soon star in Showtime’s Dexter: Original Sin, shared a GRWM video with The Hollywood Reporter in celebration of Merit’s release of its new Brow 1990 pencil. In the video, Gellar opened up about her biggest beauty regrets, including engaging in the pencil-thin brow trend of the ’90s, which left her with what she dubbed “sperm brows.”

“Do you ever look back at your old pictures and think, ‘What was I thinking?’ My biggest mistake from the ’90s that I think that everybody can agree with would be my sperm brows,” Gellar said. “That’s right, I said it, my brows looked like sperm.”

Gellar, like so many people who came of age in the late ’90s and early ’00s, went through a phase of keeping her eyebrows ultra-thin. But she explained that her mistreatment of her eyebrows didn’t end there, she also fell prey to the trend of bleaching her brows with disastrous results.

“One day I had a photo shoot and a premiere in the same day. And I was exhausted, because I was also working on this little television show I used to do called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and they bleached my eyebrows,” she shared.

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The Do Revenge actress continued, “I got home at the end of the day after the premiere, exhausted. I washed my face, and not only were my brows barely there, they disintegrated.”

The photo shoot Gellar was referring to was for the 2000 cover of Premiere Magazine, where her brows are so light it gives the appearance that she’s shaved them off completely.

Gellar went on to share a few other missteps — including dying her brows to match her hair every time she changed hair colors — while also pointing out her husband, Freddie Prinze Jr., didn’t escape the era’s unfortunate brow trends either.

“Even my poor husband has participated in eyebrow trends,” she continued. “He had to dye his hair blonde for Scooby-Doo, and they dyed his eyebrows.”

Ultimately, the ’90s icon accidentally embraced the natural brow look thanks to her stylist, Deborah Waknin.

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She shared, “Luckily, there is proof — one picture — that I finally figured out my eyebrows. My hairdresser and my makeup artist were super late. My stylist, Deborah Waknin, said, ‘I can do your makeup!’ So I kind of created a natural look in the ’90s by accident.”

While some things are best left in the ’90s, one thing that’s still going strong is Gellar’s marriage to her husband of 23 years, Prinze, Jr. On July 24, the stylish couple stepped out at the premiere of Prinze Jr.’s new film The Girl in the Pool.

Gellar wore a dainty white lace minidress accented with a black bow at the collar, while her husband donned a pink shirt with a black jacket and black cargo pants. He completed his outfit with red and black sneakers.

And yes, the couple’s eyebrows were on point.