I vividly remember my first time. I was in the attic bedroom I inhabited for one glorious month of my summer in Paris, preparing to go to the theatre with the rest of my summer school class. It was a formative moment in my life, an experience that changed me forever.
…It was the first time I ever did my brows.
The bold brows movement has gone in and out of fashion for years, brought back this time around by the likes of Cara Delevigne and other beautiful, famous people accepting their bushy brows. I didn’t know that that summer in Paris was akin to me joining a secret club but it’s felt like one ever since.
I have always loved makeup. I started with concealer and an obsessive lip gloss habit that my 7th-grade-nemesis-turned-long-time-best-friend still teases me about, branched into an array of smudgy Urban Decay eye liners in high school, and have spent my extra-curricular time at Harvard doing makeup design for theater productions and letting my roommates raid my overflowing vanity. But I have never received as many comments about any of my makeup, besides perhaps my penchant for aggressively pigmented lipstick, as I have about my brows. I didn’t know that a simple change forced by necessity (using dark brown mascara instead of clear brow gel, which I had run out of and had no idea how to look for in French drugstores) would turn into a style that my family, friends, and random people on the street would feel the need to comment on on an almost daily basis. The comments range from shouts of “on fleek!” (which I pretend to hate but secretly love) to my best friend lovingly telling me that I have “caterpillar face” and that my eyebrows look like they’re about to “crawl off my face.”
As much as I’d like to pretend this look is effortless for me, it’s just not. My natural eyebrows are misshapen and fairly sparse. No self-hate here, they’re just not right for me. There are more subtle ways to embrace this trend, but with my facial structure/general aesthetic I prefer a pretty intense version of these steps (which can be adjusted to suit your own preferences!). If bold brows alarm you, read on at your own risk, but if you’re ready to take the plunge, here’s everything you need to know about getting statement brows!
The Tools:
Eyebrow Shaper Razors (I like these from Noxzema)
Tweezers (these are the best)
Brow powder (this should be a little darker than your hair color, really any neutral tone eyeshadow in the shade of your choosing will work well; I’ve used dark brown shades in Smashbox, TooFaced, and NYX palettes for this in the past and like them all equally)
Brow gel/mascara (either clear for a more natural look or dark brown for a more intense look)
Step 1: Tweezing
The main risk you face with bold brows is looking messy. If you’re taking the time to fill in your brows, I think it’s worth taking the time to shape them first! I like to razor the baby hairs along the top of my brows, which can seem scary if you’ve never done it before, but as long as you do it carefully and sparingly, it’s the easiest way to clean up that area. Then, I use a sharp pair of tweezers (Tweezerman ones are best in my opinion, but really any will do!) to pluck under the arch. Never, ever try to change the shape of your brows from above – it’s a recipe for disaster. The razing should only neaten the brow area above and the tweezing should be doing the heavy lifting below.
Step 2: Filling In
There are two ways this can be done. If you have naturally full and shaped eyebrows, a) I hate you and b) you can use powder sparingly to fill in whatever little bald areas exist in your brows. This is the more toned-down version of what I do. Since I like to really increase the size of my brows in addition to shaping them, it’s important to design the shape of your brows before you start. Once you’ve done this a couple times, you can start doing this free-hand, but at the beginning, actively designing the shape will really help you out. To do this, use a pencil: line it up with the side of your nose to figure out where your brow should begin; with your pupil to find the ideal spot for the arch; and with the outer corner of your eye to find the ending point. Mark each spot with a small tick of brow powder. Then, using an angled brush, fill in the shape neatly with the powder.
Step 3: Setting
Finally, use clear or tinted brow gel to set the look! Clean off the brush a little before you swipe it over your powdered brows, because you don’t want it to look clumpy.
And there you have it! Like I said, any and all of these steps can be modified for a more neutral look, but I personally love how transformative a bold brow can be.