By Request: How I Groom My Eye Brows

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Strangely enough, I've been getting comments and questions recently on a feature that I've always felt was a bit of a problem for me. It's true, I have bushy, crazy and unruly eyebrows. They grow like weeds and need constant upkeep. And, I definitely can't do it alone (yes, I get professional help!), but I do a lot on my own in between those visits.

Lately those eye brows have gotten comments in posts, on Facebook, DMs on Twitter and even emails. How do I get them to look that way? What are my brow secrets? Which products are my favorite? Here's a quick peek at my current eye brow maintenance!

I know that there are probably some girls out there that have tried as many eyebrow products as I have, but really, I have tried a lot. After much trial and error, these are my favorite tools/products!

• Anastasia Precision Tweezers: I've tried pretty much every other tweezer out there (I have about 10 Tweezermans alone), but I always come back to these ones by Anastasia.

• Tweezerman Scissors: My favorite little scissors

• IT Cosmetics Brow Power: I used to use a similar pencil from Anastasia, but this one is a little better color for me and seems to last longer. I like automatic pencils with a very small lead so I don't need to do any sharpening. Powder also seems to make my bushy brows very overpowering, so I avoid using powder.

• Anastasia Dual Duality Highlighter: I have separate pencils for matte and shimmer, but this one combines both into 1 pencil.

• Anastasia Clear Brow Gel: Wax doesn't seem to work with my brows, so if things are particularly unruly I'll add a little of this at the end. It is much better than regular clear mascara, this actually holds and doesn't flake off!

• Revitalash: I've added a little of this in the past to any bald spots. It does work very quickly!

• Boom Boom Brow Job: I just started using this on those same bald spots about a week ago and it seems to be helping! It's easier to apply than the Revitalash because it has a felt tipped applicator rather than a brush. I'll update and let everyone know if it is my new product of choice!

I first learned this years and years ago, most likely from Allure Magazine. You can read about it over on the Anastasia site, but there are guidelines for where you eye brow should start, how long it should be and where your arch should arch. Clean up stragglers below by waxing/threading/tweezing, and you can do the same above but err on the side of leaving hairs on the top. The top of your brow should pretty much be left alone.

It can be surprisingly difficult to follow the correct landmarks, and I'm pretty good at doing basic cleanup, but I need help to keep the shape on course. About every 3-5 weeks (really, it depends a lot on my work schedule), I head over to my esthetician Amanda. She's a pro at waxing my brows back into submission. In between appointments I'll pluck any strays and do a little trimming.


The next images were all taken in my makeup mirror while I was actually doing my brows, hence the strange angles and things. The colors ended up a little strange, but I think you'll get the idea!

The other issue I have, other than having very thick brows, is that they grow like weeds. I'm a girl whose hair grows about 2 inches in 6 weeks. My eye brows aren't that bad, but they are definitely speedy! So, I do some trimming. I use a brow brush (or a spooly brush), comb things up, and using my small Tweezerman scissors I'll trim hairs if they stick up over my brow. Don't trim a lot at the same spot, you want them to be varied. I trim more tightly in the middle of my brows and very rarely trim the "tail" of my brows.


Here you can see that before filling them in, my brows can be a little thin in the center and sometimes I'll have bald spots. This isn't because I pulled out the hairs, but really, the area is just a little thin and if it's time for 1 hair to fall out and it was integral... yeah, a little bald spot. (More on how I try to encourage growth below.) To hide this, I fill them in a little.


When filling in my eye brows, I really prefer the look from a thin pencil. A lot of people use powder, but for me I think the result is a too-fake brow that is very strong and overwhelms my face. Not good.

To fill in the center of my brows, just follow the numbers. First I draw a straight line along the bottom (1), up the middle (2), then across the top (3). Once I have my rectangle, I roughly fill all of this in (4). I use short strokes but try to make it roughly uniform.


This is from my other brow, but you can see here roughly how much I filled it in. All of the lines are inside of the areas that have actual hair. Having hair is important for a natural looking brow. Please don't be one of those people that just has makeup for an eyebrow. It looks good in pictures on Pinterest, but in person it's just... yeah.


To fill in the rest of my brow, I run the pencil along the top of the brow (again, just inside of the hair line) and fill in a little below that. All with short strokes. I don't do much over here, it's just a little to make the arch a bit defined, not really filling in.

Once I've finished that, I turn around my pencil and run the spooly end through my brow to make the filling a bit more natural looking.


One thing that I have alluded to but haven't really explained is what I do to help treat the thinned areas/bald spots. They tend to come and go as hair fall out and grow back, but to hurry things along there are a few things that I do. First, I do scrub my brows every day. Rather than simply washing my face, I make a point of scrubbing my brows with a washcloth to help remove any skin/flakes. This helps a lot with having new hair grow, they don't seem to want to poke through non-exfoliated skin for some reason. When I get a little bald spot due to hairs falling out I'll use my lash serum (Revitalash) in that area, and lately I've been using the Boom Boom Room's Brow Job for that same reason. This help more hairs to grow in to fill in the area.


Here's the end result! They're more defined and neater, but not overly done and dominating my face.

What are your brow tricks?




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