5 no-fail tips you need to shape your brows at home
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If you’re still a bit scarred from the years-long tweeze fest of the early 2000s, you’ll know more than well that shaping your brows at home can come with several risks. With brows trends continuing to evolve, we repeatedly turn to the trusted professionals for anything relating to our sacred arches.
With that said, you still can shape your brows at home without any regrets — as long as you use the right tips and tools.
Tip 1: Leave ‘em alone
Hold the temptation — and just stop plucking. Removing out-of-place hairs in its early stages can potentially lose a sense of the bigger picture and the ideal shape you want. Depending on how fast your brows grow, it’s recommended to clean them up every two to four weeks. The process can be a drag, but hey, having more to play with is definitely better than not having enough.
For an added boost of nutrients to encourage growth, a good conditioner like castor oil or Revitalash’s RevitaBrow will do the trick.
Revitalash RevitaBrow ADVANCED Eyebrow Conditioner
SHOP IT: Nordstrom, $166
Tip 2: Replace old, dull tweezers
Your old pair of tweezer become useless (and a nuisance) once their slanted edges aren’t able to hold on to your individual hairs. The solution is to replace them with a brand new pair. A cost-efficient solution is to revive dull edges by running them against a knife sharpener or a nail file.
TWEEZERMAN Stainless Steel Slant Tweezer
Shop it: Sephora, $31
Tip 3: Don’t always rely on a magnifying mirror
When it’s time for plucking, you’ll need to see the full picture of your brows. While using a small magnifying mirror is great for precision, using a regular mirror prevents you from removing too much accidentally. If you’re doing it properly, you should only be removing one hair at a time.
Tip 4: Consider brow mapping
If we’ve learned anything about brows over the years, it’s that it’s easy to get carried away with a pair of tweezers and a small mirror. To avoid over-tweezing, try mapping out your brows to reveal the perfect shape and length for your face. Brow mapping is a technique used to style the brow to find tthe natural pinpoints: start, arch and end.
Here, Benefit Cosmetics National Brow Artist, Breigh Bellavance breaks down her easy, essential steps for a fool-proof at-home brow map:
“Find the start, arch and endpoints of your brows by using a straight edge, like a brow pencil, as a measuring device.”
Start: “With the brow pencil tip pointed upwards, measure vertically from each nostril. Draw a vertical line at the front of each brow.”
Arch: “Measure diagonally from each nostril, through the outer edge of your iris, then draw a vertical line with your pencil right through the brow.”
End: “Measure diagonally from the edge of your nose past the outer corner of the eye. Draw the last vertical line.”
“Complete the brow map by connecting the marks using straight lines. This will give you a good idea of which hairs can be removed, and which should be kept in order to maintain your brow shape. So long as you tweeze outside the lines, you’ll never go too far!”
For extra guidance or in case you're curious to see other potential shapes would look, Benefit’s Virtual Brow Try-On Tool lets you play with different brow shapes, styles and shades. Simply upload a selfie or use a live version with your device camera, and have fun! Adjust the shade, arch, definition, and placement that best suits you!
Tip 5: If you have to, trim your brows
Not all brow hairs grow in the same direction. For those long stragglers that are growing up and/or down, altering the grow shape you want, a trim will do the trick.
For precise trimming, use safety scissors with a little curve on the blade to help guide you. To shorten the length above the brow, you’ll want to hold your scissors in a way that the curve is facing upwards — think of a smiley face — and away from your brow. When you’re trimming the bottom hairs of your brow, you’ll want to hold it so the curve is frowning.
Tweezerman 2-Piece Brow Shaping Scissors and Brush Set
SHOP IT: The Bay, $29
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