Life Will Get Rosy If You Just Sort Your Eyebrows Out

thewalnutwaltz Beauty, Style eyebrows, tweezers

I’m not sure why I am fascinated by eyebrows. What is it about the brow that is so alluring? It does feel that a good set of eyebrows can be the start and end of your beauty routine, but I don’t know why. I can think of three sets of brows that captured me on my brow journey: Mary-Kate qand Ashley Olsen and Brooke Shields. I remember being blown away by Brooke’s stunning beauty in particular- her eyebrows. My eyebrows have always been an odd shape, short and bushy in irregular places, but not thick. Oddly shaped and sparse, a thicker brow end than anyone would care to have. So despite adoring Brooke’s thick ones and yearning for Mary-Kate’s naturally unkempt beauties, I found myself with hand on tweezers furiously plucking. I’d come to the conclusion at the grand old age of 14 that eyebrows should have an arch and that hairs that were out of place were a big no-no. If Marty McFly ever lets me use his time machine, I know exactly what I’d do first- go back to the 90s to hide all my Mum’s tweezers. If I’d only seen the beauty of my unique, natural brow and stopped listening to every piece of eyebrow advice I came across I wouldn’t have been so confused and I wouldn’t have had the chance to completely sabotage my two furry friends.

There were Two Things I did Wrong:

1. Think of tweezing as my passage into womanhood. I grabbed those tweezers and started, without any thought as to what I was aiming to create.
2. Constantly changed my mind on how my eyebrows should look. I was obsessed with arches, under brow hair, making the end into a point, redoing my arch because it wasn’t in the ‘right’ place, plucking from the top of my brow etc etc… No wonder my eyebrows have suffered.

If I was to give my 14-year old self advice it would be this: Eyebrows come in all shapes and sizes naturally, like fingerprints they are unique. Appreciate them as they are and go get some brow powder to play about with instead.

Eyebrow trends have been about since the dawn of time, but messing with your eyebrow shape can cause lack of grow back- you may end up with really strange lookin’ brows. You simply can’t stay on top of eyebrow trends, your eyebrows won’t let you. So instead, my plan is to leave my eyebrows alone- plucking far away from my brows, only rejecting the very very stray hairs.

Treat Your Furry Friends with a little Love & Respect:

• Take a good look at them. Know the in’s and out’s of their shape. See if one is more sparse or uneven than the other. Look at the top and tail of both, do they differ there? You are simply figuring out how they are so you can properly go about make-uping them to their best. I, for example, know that my left brow hasn’t got as much at the top of the brow as my right and that it is generally sparser.
• Go with your natural shape. Don’t try and shape them to have arches if they don’t have them. There are so many different types of eyebrows, its foolish to think ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to grooming. Audrey Hepburn’s brow shape wouldn’t suit a lot of people but they transform her face and made her into an icon. Eyebrows are unique, individual to you. Celebrate them!
• Remember eyebrows are ‘sisters not twins.’ Making them look identical is likely to cause heartbreak and ultimately failure (or so goes my experience) so I would really really advise that you don’t.

The Look: Naturally Bushy

Experiment with a selection of shades, use feathery strokes slowly built up, go for subtle lines over block colours and do not underestimate the use of a barely there powered brush.

You will Need:

• Very Light Pencil
• Matching Brow Pencil
• Optional: Matching Brow Powder
• Optional: Slanted Brow Brush
• Lots of Time!

1. The bulk of thick, luscious hairs tend to be in the middle through to the end. Lightly pencil in the very front and top of the brow (where there are those annoying ‘out of place’ hairs) with a shade a lot lighter than your brow hair. Pencil in the direction your hairs naturally go. Also if your brows are particularly patchy or one is shorter/radically different from the other pencil it in to make them roughly the same shape. The idea is to make your brows look naturally thicker, you want to use a lighter pencil to make subtle fine hairs, you are building up dimension. Ultimately, you are getting an idea of your full brow shape.
2. Draw a line along the bottom of the main part of the brow (ie- not at the front, or the end) with a powder that matches your brows and a slanted brush. Lightly shade the line up.
3. Run over the front of the brow with the remaining powder on the brush then take a little more powder to apply to the eyebrow end. Don’t be concerned about a fine point, you’re aiming for a natural shape.
4. Use a pencil that matches the powder to put in some feathery strokes over the top. Leave the top well alone, instead focus on the middle section.

The Look: Dramatic

This look is strong. It could be too harsh if used in the wrong circumstances. I would only use this look at night, when you have a full face of make-up to balance out the strength of these power brows.

You will Need:

• Very Light Pencil
• Matching Brow Pencil
• Matching Brow Powder
• Slanted Brow Brush
• Optional: Brow Mascara

1. Build up the ‘faux’ hairs first as in Step 1 from the ‘Naturally Bushy’ look.
2. Run a line of powder along the bottom of the brow, (as in Step 2 of Naturally Bushy, but this time going all the way from end to end) blending up and filling in any patches.
3. Pencil in with your matching brow pencil to neaten up the edges, especially the front and end.
4. Optional: Run some brow mascara through the hairs to finish off. Be careful how you use it, you don’t want to go out-with the edges you’ve just created.

The Look: Unkempt

Its about to get messy. This look is not for the faint hearted.

You will Need:

• Matching Brow Pencil
• Brow Mascara
• Spoolie

1. Brush the hairs up in the first half of your brow. Brush the second half tidy.
2. Gently pencil in hairs all over the brow with a matching brow colour. Pencil up for the first half of the brow and across for the second half. Be careful not to get any pencil ‘dots.’ Use pencil sparingly as not to create block colour. Less is more.
3. Use brow mascara over whole brow. Be very careful, with your sparse pencilling, mascara blotches are more noticeable. Messy eyebrows don’t mean messy application. Alternatively, skipping step 3- leaves you with a subtle look good for the everyday.

The Look: Thinner Brows

For the times when there is no time.

You will Need:

• Matching Brow Powder
• Slanted Brow Brush

1. Use your slanted brush, powder and feathery strokes to lightly fill in your brows. Concentrate on the middle of the middle of the brow. Brushing a little of the leftover powder on the front and end.
2. Optional: Add more to the front, but don’t be heavy handed. Subtle rough and ready is where its at.