I get asked about my eyebrows a lot so I figured I'd compile a little helpful post full of tips and good products to use when doing your brows. Whether you're maintaining their shape or enhancing them with makeup products, hopefully you'll find this helpful!
To start, a little history:
First off, I don't consider mine "perfect" by any means. But I will say that I do consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about eyebrows. I've been dealing with mine for most of my life. As a child with naturally dark hair and even darker (and thicker) eyebrows, you can imagine how difficult some of my elementary years were as an 11 year old battling a uni-brow...lol. But seriously, over the years I've had some really interesting brow mishaps. From discovering the wonder that is tweezers, to abusing that luxury and over plucking the you-know-what out of them. So basically, my knowledge and tips come purely from my years and years of mistakes in the past. I've learned what works and what doesn't and luckily, in my college years, finally figured out how to maintain them in a way that worked for my face.
Now keep in mind, eyebrows are a tricky business. Remember that everyone's preferences are different when it comes to brows. Everyone has a slightly different natural shape and arch to theirs. Which brings me to my first tip:
1. Go with what nature intended. Play up your natural arch and brow shape. If you don't have a very "arched" natural arch, don't force it. It will never look smooth or natural and you'll be stuck maintaining them like CRAZY. If you "clean up" your natural shape, it will be much more flattering to your face.
Also consider the length of your actual arch. While it shouldn't extend too far down your brow bone, tweezing or waxing them off too short can really throw off the proportion and balance of your face. Trust me, I've been there... to both extremes. I do like a higher arch and I do make my brows a bit longer because my eyes are small and this makes your eyes appear bigger..But try not to over do it!
2. Don't overpluck the "tail" of your brows. You want the hair to be thin but you dont want it non existant!
3. Don't pluck with a magnifying mirror. Ever. Seems like a great idea, and it makes seeing the hair so much easier, but if you need a 10x magnifying mirror to see the hair, you don't need to pluck it. Unless you have serious vision issues, you don't need one of these ever.
4. If you are unsure about tweezing a certain hair, just don't do it. Chances are, if you can't decide if it really needs to go, it doesn't. Plucking just one hair can leave a gap or mess with the shape of your brows.
5. Only trim if necessary. Use a brow brush and brush your brows upwards and if you see longer hairs take a SMALL pair of sissors and trim them..
6. If your brows look uneven (I've been there MANY times), DON'T pluck the one that appears larger in order to make it match the smaller one. Chances are, you'll end up with not one, but two over-plucked brows. Just fill-in the area of the "smaller" one that appears not to match the other. Even them up with a brow pencil or eyeshadow while that area grows out.
7. If you've over-plucked or over-trimmed in any way, put the tweezers down and step AWAY from the mirror. Trust me, a few weeks of letting them grow back out will be worth it. During that time, just wear some large sunglasses. But seriously, you can grow them out without looking grizzly. This doesn't mean you have to neglect the obvious re-growth that shouldn't be there. AKA hair in the uni-brow area or hair that is far above or below the natural arch. Just leave the hair to grow right around the natural shape you want.
8. To get the shape you want, whether you've grown out an over-plucked situation and need to start fresh, or you just want to do something with your brows for the first time, I'd strongly suggest going to a reputable salon to get them waxed. Tell them not to go overboard and bring pictures if you want. Just be realistic and choose pictures of brows that are similar to your natural arch and shape.
9. After you've gotten your perfect shape, you can maintain them yourself! As they grow back, you'll notice the shorter hairs that had been waxed (or plucked) from before. Tweeze ONLY those. Don't get happy and tweeze any longer hairs.
10. If you are going to use one of those little eyebrow razors be extremly careful..I use one all the time because I dont always like to tweeze..But I am extremly slow with it and my hand is pretty steady. If you have shakey hands stick to tweezing!!! Otherwise you might take too much away!
NOW LETS GET ON TO THE FILLING THEM IN AND DEFINING THEM.
This is basically all I use when filling in my brows..I put the elf brow kit in the picture but I really have not been using it very much latley..I really think the shade is too light for me and until I order a new one I am basically mixing up my own brow powder with some shadows..I also use a pencil and a very very thin eye liner brush..
Here is the eyeliner brush..
Its a very thin liner brush..
You can see how thin in this picture..It really helps with that thin tail at the end of your brow.
And for the brow powder I am mixing up my own until I get a dark color of brow powder that I like..
So I mix a tiny ammount of this black matte color with..
this dark brown shadow. It makes the right color for me..You will have to experiment with what color suits you best..Like me, dont be afraid to mix colors to get the right shade for you.
. When filling them in, I use a pencil and make a line at the bottome and at the top of my eye brow and I bring the lines together right before the tale starts..See picture
The area I did traced in white is where I outline my eye with the pencil..I dont do a circle end to my brow like it reflects in the picture though..I just did a circle because that is an area that I fill in with the pencil..
And with that..I fill them in with the pencil...I dont do anything with with tail at that point..
Like the above picture shows take the line with the pencil right up to your arch on top and bottom..and fill them in with the same pencil..again..do nothing with the tail..
Then I use the thin liner brush with some brow powder to make another line across the bottom to give it more defination..just on the bottom..right up to the arch like you did with the pencil. Then I pull the color up with the liner brush from the line I just made into the brow..Just get on the top of the line you made and pull the brush upward..
and then do you tail..Just pull some of the color from the brow and pull it out into a thin arched line..
Finished!!
If I am going to be out for a long day I will add some brow gel to my eyes to help keep the brows in the right shape and to give them some texture. but for days at home I normally dont use it..
Now sometimes I like to make them a little thnner or a little thicker based on the look I am trying to achive..
To make them thicker fill them up more at the top..that will give you a fuller look..
Well I hope some of this will help you guys with you brows..
Remember go have them shaped first and let them know if you want a high arch or not. Most the little nail salons do it and its around $ 6.00..then you can maintain the shape yourself!
K Jaggers
♥
( BTW...sorry about some of the writing in some of the pictures..dont know why it got blurry once I uploaded it on here..)
thanks for the tips :)
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