Tipping Thursday (a day late): Shaping Your Eyebrows

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My younger brother came to visit me yesterday and we spent the day at the pool and running errands together, so I didn't get to post my tip for this week yesterday.  So here it is, a day late!

Jumping back into make-up and such, I thought I'd share with you all how to properly shape and groom your eyebrows.  This can be tricky for some of us.  I know it took me a while to master and have my brows match.  

Start by sectioning off your brow.  Using a pencil as a guide, line up the inner corner of your eye with your brow.  That's where your brow should start, straight up from the corner of your eye.  Then mark it with a colored liner.  I like to use a colored one because it shows up better so I know where to pluck when it's time.

Then mark where your arch should be-this is directly above your pupil.

To determine where your brow should end, take your pencil and place it diagonally from the outer corner of your eye and mark it.

I also like to make sure that my brows are even across (I once had one that was higher than the other and it constantly looked like I had one eyebrow raised) so I again take my pencil, place it straight across my forehead where I want my brows to be and mark it with my liner.

So your brow should look something like this when it's all marked up.

Use your marks as a guide when you pluck and then repeat on the other side.

Once you've removed all the stray hairs with your tweezers, it's time to trim your brows.  Using a brow comb, brush your eyebrow up towards your hairline.  

(Sorry this one is blurry!)  Then trim the hairs that extend past the natural line of your brows.  To keep them in place once you're all finished, you can:

*Use an eyebrow gel-it usually looks like mascara, but it's clear and you just brush it on.

*Comb them in place and set with a small squirt of hairspray

*Just leave them be and hope they behave

Or

(this is what I do) Take a minute amount of hair gel, like smaller than a pea-sized and run your eyebrow brush through it then brush them into place.  It's just enough gel to keep them put without them getting crunchy or flaky throughout the day.

And there you go!

Some other shaping Do's and Don'ts (via Allure Magazine):

*DON'T wax eyebrows if you take Accutane or use Retin-A or Renova.  The wax can pull off skin.

*DON'T over tweeze.  It's the most common mistake and can result in spindly lines of hair that leave the eyes "bulgy," according to Denise Chaplin.

*DO have an arch, but be careful: "Many women attempt to create an arch by tweezing too much near the inner corner of the brow," says Chaplin, "so they have this weird opening underneath and brows either look very round or like a polywog."

*DON'T commit these tweezing sins: trimming too much; leaving brows one width all the way across, which makes the nose look wide; tweezing the space between each eyebrow (the space above your nose) too wide, which makes your eyes look too far apart and your face wider; taking too much off of the ends, which makes eyes look smaller and closer together.

*The ideal brow is full, perfectly arched and proportioned.

Now, perfection is a little hard to attain, so here's a way to cheat:

Paula Dorf Eyebrow Stencil Kit, CVS, $25

You just take the stencil, fill in your brow and tweeze the remaining hairs.

I found a kit that was just the stencils at CVS also for a lot cheaper, but I can't remember the brand and I couldn't find them online.