Dealing With Your Eyebrows

Dealing With Your Eyebrows

Have you ever really looked at someone's eyebrows? Like really looked at them and wondered what made them good, bad, ugly, too thick, too thin, whatever?

Or have you ever just really looked at your own brows and thought, "This is getting ridiculous".

That's because it's time to deal with them.

And imma show you how to do it.

First, consider your tools. You'll need a pair of small scissors for trimming any wild hairs. My pair are from Muse Beauty; they're Cuterz Scissors. 

http://www.musebeauty.pro/cuterz-scissors.aspx

The reason I carry these instead of traditional small scissors is that all I have to do is pinch it like tweasers to cut- which ensures more control for me. Ever use small scissors near someone's face when you have Hulk hands or had too much coffee? It's a nightmare.

Then I have a spooli or small mascara wand to push the actual hairs around. Mine's a travel sized one from MAC that I got in a kit- but you can literally buy a pack of these for like 2 bucks on the ELF website, or some nicer ones from Muse Beauty. They're everywhere.

Then you need tweasers. I lost my adorable pink poka-dot Tweaserman set and I had to use this one I got that is not super great. Go spend the $20 and get a nice pair, trust me. They'll pull hairs out and not accidentally cut them, and actually have a good enough grip to deal with stubborn hairs. (Plus with Tweaserman, if your set ever gets dull, they sharpen them for free. Worth it.)

Lastly, you need a pencil that actually looks nice on you. I like the one from Maybelline strictly because the product itself is a little stiff and not creamy and the pencil is uber small- meaning I can draw in smaller dashes to look like real hairs.

If you want something stronger or less life-like, I hear Anastasia dip brow pomade is great, or you can just use a small angled brush with an eyeshadow or cream and mark them bad boys in.

Color wise- a rule of thumb is to make sure the undertone is right and stay either a few shades lighter or a few shades darker than your actual hair. 

Black hair? Go slightly lighter otherwise you'll end up with some Nike swoosh lookin' eyebrows.

Brunette- lighter or darker- just try to avoid black eyebrows.

Blonde- Go a few shades darker and aim for whatever tone your roots are. (Ashy, neutral, warm.)

Example: I'm blonde by choice, brunette by nature. So I aim to match my roots in color and then I stay more towards the ashy side since that's what my hair naturally does.

So here's a before of my brows. They aren't too bad, but they definitely got bushy and long. Not cute. You can see where the hairs want to lay down- giving the top of my brow a sunken spot. Again, not cute.

 So here's where you create your guideline:

-Lay a pencil at the side of your nose going straight up, past your eye. This is where your brow will start. Going in too far creates the unibrow shape and makes you eyes look close together. Too far apart gives you an alien-esque look which is cool, but not what we're going for.

-Angle the pencil, keeping it at the side of your nose but passing the color part of your eye. This is where the arch will generally be. You can play with this a little though. I let my arch go slightly off to make my eyes appear futher apart. 'Cause I got a square head and I like looking like Lauren Becall. Don't judge. A girl can dream.

-Now still keeping your pencil at the side of your nose, lay the pencil going past the end of your eye. This is where the brow will end. Now if you notice, my brows aren't actually long enough. The tails of my brows are pretty sparse and annoying so that's usually where most of my pencil work will go.

So basically what you'll do first is twease any hairs that don't belong in the guideline we created. I have a few to the center and some under the arch I gotta deal with on the reg.

 Next (and bear with me because I can't get a picture cutting my brows because I need both hands) you're going to use the spooli and brush the hairs up. Anything that is just crazy long needs to be trimmed off. I know it seems crazy, but just do it. Then brush them downward and trim off the crazy long ones. You'll see on my picture, I have a ton to trim when I brush down.

Brush them back into place and if they don't lay where you want them too, odds are you need to trim more off. If they lay going down towards your eye, they're too heavy and there's probably some long hairs you missed. It's all trail and error, I promise.

Now we pencil in. I use short strokes with not a lot of pressure to achieve a more realistic look, but you can pretty much do whatever you like. It's personal preference, and also depends on what your natural brows look like to begin with. So if you generally overpluck and don't have eyebrows, you're gonna have to do some major drawing.

Then hit them with the spooli again to help break up any harsh lines.

Generally, I keep mine looking pretty full and natural because I think it looks the best on me. But you can see how I lay my arch just outside of the outline I create. It gives my eye a dreamier look, which is more flattering for me. BUT TRUST ME, IT TOOK ME LIKE 3 YEARS TO FIGURE THAT ONE OUT.

Don't feel bad if you find out later that there's another shape for you. That's why the outline is a guideline and not a golden rule. 

If you really panic though, go to a pro and have them do it- then just keep up with the shape they created for you. 

-SamanthaK