It's all well and good finally figuring out how to get the perfect shape for your brows, but which product do you choose? Brow pencil? Brow powder? What about brow gel? Or do you use everything? What about concealer? Here, I explore the products you need.
Brow products have exploded in popularity over the last five years or so — which I largely credit Miss Cara Delevigne. If you're new to the makeup artistry game, or if you're a regular visitor to the drugstore, you'll notice that it seems like there is yet another new brow product every single week. Things like powders, gels, clever pencils, two in one, three in one and twelve in one products are all designed to make your brows look like a billion dollars. But it can be tricky to know what you should buy and how you should apply it, especially with such an overabundance of products on the market.
Here, I try to navigate the confusing world of brow products so that you don't have to!
What You Need To Know About Using A Brow Pencil
The simplest and perhaps the easiest to use of all of the brow products, the humble brow pencil, is a simple tool that anyone can pick up and use straight away. There are a couple of different techniques to using it — a feathering method, and an outline method. I'd say that the feathering method is a little easier to pick up if you're a beginner.
- Feathering: Use a brow brush to brush your brows upwards and outwards, giving them a bit of volume. Then, use the pencil to fill in any sparse bits, following the general shape of your brow, or using the below picture as a general guideline (arch at a diagonal to your pupil, end of the brow at a diagonal to the outside of your eye, and the beginning of your brow following from the line of your nose), in a very light to create fine "hairs".
- Outline: Outlining your brows creates a much more finished and polished look, but it can also be quite tricky if you're new to makeup. If your brows are really sparse it's also quite obvious that they're drawn in with this technique. First up, you draw a thin line underneath your brow, in one smooth line, marking where you want the bottom of your brow to be. Next, you draw a thin line marking the top line of your brow, joining the two lines together into a smooth narrow tip that forms the end of your eyebrow. Brush your brows up, then fill in the gaps using the feathering tip above. Use a concealer pencil or a concealer pot and angled brush to draw concealer around the brow line you just created, then blend it out with the brush. This really reinforces that shape. You're done! It's a lengthier method, sure, but it does create a "just been to the salon and just got my brows done" look.
Top Tip: Always pluck after grooming your brows. Plucking before can mean that you pluck too many hairs out and the aim is to keep as many of your natural hairs as possible, so that after a while, all you have to do is groom them into place and maybe put a little bit of dye onto them — rather than groom them into oblivion every morning.
How To Get Great Eyebrows
Brow Powder
I love using brow powder because I find that it gives excellent hold. There are a couple pencils that include brow pencil on the top of the pencil and if I were you, I wouldn't bother with those, simply because the powder doesn't really have anything to adhere to. Look for a brow powder kit that includes brow wax, a couple different colors of powder, a pair of precision tweezers and a mini angled brush and you'll be laughing.
I picked up my kit in a beauty box and it actually only retails for £2.99, but I had a look around and it had pretty much unanimous great reviews from beauty bloggers across the UK, so take a look and see if you can find a similar kit and see how you get on. I'm definitely going to be buying a new one of these when mine runs out!
Use the side of the flatter brush to apply a little bit of the clear wax. You only need a little bit. This is for shaping your brows. If your brows are sparse, spread the wax down into the areas that you'll be drawing the brows down to, so that the powder has something to adhere to. Then, using the angled brush, dip it into the powder and fill in the brows using little feathery strokes, as shown on my hand below. Keep going until you've filled in both brows. If you like, you could leave it here. Your brows look fuller and thicker. For me, because mine are particularly sparse after years of over-plucking, I need the brow gel just to help the hairs look a little bit thicker and fuller. I brush the brows from the inside out, in the window wiper motion, then brush them the right way into place. I just use the end of my 2-in-1 brow gel to keep everything in place.
Brow Gel
If you're a lucky lady with gorgeously full brows, you might just be able to get away with brow gel and brow gel alone. If you are that lady then know this — I envy you so! You can just brush through your brows backwards using the window washer motion, then even them all out again. I know that there are some gels available with little fibers, but you'd need to have brows that are at least the right shape, because otherwise — if your brows are shorties like mine — you'd have thick brows but they'd end far too quickly and you'd need to fill them out with pencil anyway and they might not match etc, etc, etc.
Hightlighter
Another way to boost those brows is with highlighter: pop a little bit on your browbone and blend out, a little bit under your brows and blend out, making sure that you don't get any in your brows themselves. It works in the same way that contouring works — highlighting those areas and making the darker areas, i.e. your brows, stand out more.
Which tools do you use to keep your brows groomed? Let us know!
Sources & Links
- Photo courtesy of flossyflotsam via Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/flossyflotsam/19111567574
- Photo courtesy of Idhren via Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/idhren/6643392677