Eyebrows are tricky creatures. You know how they’re supposed to look, but sometimes they don’t want to cooperate, and because they’re growing out of your head, they have a semi permanent character that defies wishes and good intentions.
One of the many problems of eyebrows is the fact that if they aren’t the right color, they can either dominate your face or disappear entirely. Their unfortunate (but necessary) proximity to your eyeballs makes it a pretty major no-no to just sweep the haircolor across each brow and hope it doesn’t drip into your eyes. That’s why the goddess of practical beauty created the eyebrow pencil, an unsatisfactory solution, but sometimes better than nothing if your eyebrows happen to be very pale.
Proper Beauty Tools Make Eyebrow Shaping a Breeze
Plucking the perfect eyebrow shape can be a stressful task because no one wants painful, over tweezed brows. Follow the lead of to make up artists and get the right tweezers and eyebrow care beauty tools. For very little money you can get the same eyebrow tweezers most professional salons use.
Shaping Your Eyebrows: How to get the perfect arch shape
Shape is also crucial, and if your eyebrows are coarse, creating and maintaining the ideal shape is difficult because pulling out individual hairs can leave large gaps, or severely shorten the length of a brow if you happen to pull out the half-inch hair on the very end.
The perfect eyebrow starts above the inside corner of your eye (over the tear duct), and ends at the outside corner, above your eyelashes. Eyebrows should have an arch: in nature, it’s rarely where it should be, which is a frustrating commentary on standards of beauty. Ideally, the arch happens over the iris, the colored part of your eye. It should be gentle, so if you’re planning to reshape your arch, take it very, very slowly. Do a hair or two a day, and err on the side of caution. Hasty plucking can give you a surprised look that lasts for weeks.
The eyebrow shape: I used to not be bothered with my eyebrows. They just grew and sat there, above my eyes, not bothering anyone. But then I started reading about how everyone has a perfect shape for her eyebrows. So I went and had them waxed at some salon. (Adequate.) Then I tried another place that only tweezed. (Excellent, but the woman had a falling out with the guy who used to cut my hair and she disappeared.) Then I somehow finagled an appointment with Eliza Petrescu, brow guru to stars like J-Lo. (It was way too difficult to get an appointment and also way too expensive.) Right now I am all about Janna at Sothys on 57th Street. She is pretty no-nonsense, but I’m not going for a social call. She quickly gets my brows into a shape that opens up my eyes and somehow makes my overall look cleaner. At $36, it feels like a luxury in this economy, so I’ve been waiting longer between visits and doing what I can to follow the shape and tweeze stray hairs. The trick is to find someone who can figure out what shape works best for your face, and doesn’t go too thin or leave them too bushy. It definitely makes a difference and is worth the investment. If you see someone whose eyebrows you like, ask them who they go to.
The eyebrow highlighter: Once you have your brows in good shape, MAC makes a nice clear gel to keep them groomed, if you so desire. I generally skip that step, but I do often use a highlighter just at the base of the eyebrows, which serves to give the optical illusion of an even higher brow. This helps to brighten your whole face.
How to Pluck Eyebrows with Tweezers: The Do’s and Don’ts
Many women pluck their eyebrows with tweezers. Some wax them, but wax is tricky because it’s hard to get an accurate shape. And some go to a hair removal salon to try “threading.” Although threading is newly popular in the United States, it is a centuries-old technique of hair removal practiced in India. The eyebrow experts say never, never to pluck your eyebrows from above, but always to pluck from the bottom of the brow. I say, if you have some wild or stray or bushy hairs growing above your brows, feel free to pluck them. I did it once, and nothing bad happened to me.
I read somewhere that it’s okay to trim your eyebrows. I think this is good if the single hairs are long and thick. You can pluck some hairs and trim the others, brushing them up, evening the ends (be careful not to trim too much!), then brushing them down checking again and again as you go along.
Video on Tips for Eyebrow Shaping
Use Eyebrow Gel to Keep Your Brow Shape Neat after Tweezing
Finally, keeping your brows neat can be done with special eyebrow gel, or you can use a little hair gel to smooth them and keep them shapely.
5 Steps to a Perfect Eyebrow Shape
- Trim your eyebrows. This will make a big difference in helping you look younger. Once eyebrows reach a certain length they start losing pigments at the ends. I love using a mustache trimmer set I purchased at a department store. It comes with a little comb and perfect point scissors. Comb your eyebrows up, trim any excess that goes beyond the natural hair line. Comb your eyebrows down, and do the same. It may seem like a lot at first but trust me, you will love the outcome.
- Take an eyeliner pencil and place it vertically against your nose. It should run from the side of the nose, mid-mouth, and by the tear duct of the eye. This is where your eyebrow should start; any hair that is visible beyond the pencil should be tweezed.
- Next place the pencil diagonally where it should hit the middle of the mouth, nostril, and outside the iris of the eye. This is wear your arch is. Tweeze a gradually line from the arch to the start of the eyebrow. Remember, GRADUAL, nothing harsh.
- To determine the end of the eyebrow, place the pencil diagonally across to the opposite corners of the mouth, nostril, and outside corner of the eye. Any hair that goes past should be tweezed.
- Place your pencil horizontal from the start of the eyebrow to the end of the eyebrow. The pencil should create a perfect straight line.
