Beauty

6 eyebrow grooming tips

How to make eyebrow grooming a part of your regular beauty routine.

by : Ava Baccari- Aug 22nd, 2013

There’s much ado about brows lately—from
Lily Collins to Cara Delevingne’s full sets—and how to properly groom them while keeping a natural, grown-in look. Though it sounds contradictory, the trick to keeping a clean, polished look is incorporating brow grooming into your
beauty routine—and not overdoing it.

“Eyebrows are one of if not the most important features of the face,” says Olivia Colacci, a Toronto-based hair and makeup artist with Plutino Group. “They can help bring balance and proportion to your face by manipulating their shape and size.” Given their importance as the architecture of your face, we asked Colacci for her expert at-home eyebrow grooming tips.

EYEBROW GROOMING TIPS

1. Don’t overpluck!

Sure, all hair grows back, but that still leaves you with at least four weeks with a perma-surprised look on your face should you wax and pluck eyebrows with abandon. “I see people everywhere that have picked up a set of tweezers and gone to town on their brows, plucking one and trying to match it to the other,” says Colacci. “By the time they are done, they still have two wonky shapes and now they are picking up a pencil to draw them in.” A warning for the next time you pick up a pair of tweezers: “Once you take it off, you can’t put it back.”

Grooming tips: The perfect BOLD EYEBROW

2. Beware the unibrow

The history of the unibrow doesn’t look good. “I think it’s safe to say that only Frida Kahlo owned and rocked the unibrow,” says Colacci about the famously thick-browed painter. To create a safe distance between eyebrows, “hold your tweezers alongside your nose. Imagine a line that goes alongside your nose and straight up to the inner corner of your eye,” she explains. “That is where your brows should start.” Just be sure to check that the space above the bridge of your nose is centered between the two, and remove any stray hairs growing in between

Never-fail looks: Your OFFICE BEAUTY ROUTINE

3 more at-home grooming tips for your eyebrows on the next page…

3. Perfect your arch

Next determine the end of your brow: holding your tweezer vertically alongside your nose, tilt it so that the back end lines up with the outer corner of your eye. “Any hairs that fall outside that imaginary diagonal line intersecting with your brow should be removed,” she says. When shaping your arch, hold the tweezer along your nose and line it up with the outer rim of your iris—this is where your arch should start, right on your brow bone. Groom the tail end of your brow to that it tapers at the end. “Full brows are the biggest thing this season, so if you’re going to skip on your beauty routine be sure to at least do your brows,” says Colacci. “You’ll look that much more
polished and on trend.”

GALLERY: Fall 2013’s PRETTIEST EYES

4. Brush, don’t trim

Brow trimming is not a matter to be taken lightly. “If they aren’t done right, it can look as if a barber lined up your brows,” says Colacci. “Using the Tweezerman brow brush, comb them up and outwards in their natural direction.” Use scissors to trim any hairs that are noticeably longer than the rest.

5. See a brow expert

While at-home brow maintenance keeps you looking polished, visit an eyebrow expert every four to six weeks to set the base for the perfect shape. Then you can easily follow along their work. “Maintain them with tweezers about once a week,” advises Colacci. “They should be super natural, while taking off what is necessary or unruly.”

Beauty basics: The best makeup for SENSITIVE SKIN

6. Give brows daily TLC

After
flawless skin, eyebrows are at the top of the natural beauty routine. “Just about everyone should have brows as a part of their morning regimen,” she says. Use a brow brush to comb the hairs up and outwards and take a sharp brow pencil to fill in any gaps with small strokes. Then coat with a brow gel overtop to keep the hairs in place. Using a brow highlighter, “highlight the brow bone—underneath the arch—and blend down and out with your fingers,” says Colacci. “This will highlight your new shape and make your brows look extra polished.”