Hey, you.
Yes, you. You, who insists on doing your own eyebrows. Stop.
Here’s why: it is too hard to get the shape right all by yourself. You might do one side perfectly, while the other side? Well… Not so much. Or, maybe you are trying to contrive a shape that is not right for your face. Or, maybe you are trying WAY too hard to get your eyebrows looking ship-shape every day.
Let me show you some pitfalls of DIY eyebrows:
Too straight:
I can see her five o’clock shadow on her eyebrows. Photo Credit: team jimmy joe
Too wide:
Bless her heart. There is an entire blog on tumblr devoted to bad eyebrows and she’s on it.
Too thin (is there any hair at all or just pencil?):
This takes an incredible amount of time. And, she scares me. Image credit: Tribe of Mannequins.
If eyes are the windows to the soul, then eyebrows are the window treatments. So how do you know what shape your eyebrows need to be? Bold brows are on trend right now, and the champion for the bold brow is a woman out of Beverly Hills named Anastasia. She has developed a method for shaping and enhancing the eyebrow. This is achieved using what she calls the Golden Ratio, as shown below:
Image credit: Anastasia Beverly Hills
Eyebrows need to start along the inner crease of the nose. The arch should be along the same line as the nose crease, up through the pupil. The eyebrow should end on a line that starts at the outer nostril line, past the outer edge of the eye.
I decided to try it out at Clique Waxing Boutique, where their aestheticians are trained in the method. I met with the owner, Janna Flowers, who directed me to grow my brows out full throttle for two weeks. No plucking, tweezing or trimming.
I almost broke down after a week without tweezing.
I looked like an orangutan for my appointment.
I must really have no dignity to show this picture.
Janna has her work cut out for her, literally. Below, she is using an Anastasia stencil to find the best shape for my brow.
Using one of the stencils to shape my brow.
She then proceeded to dye my eyebrows a darker color to “take advantage of every hair you have,” especially the ones near the outer corner of my eye. In the next picture, you will notice a bolder, darker brow and this is why. It’s dyed. That process takes less than five minutes.
All marked up and looking a bit like Frida Kahlo.
After getting marked and stenciled, she took about five minutes tops waxing and shaping my brows.
Here is the “after” shot:
Nothing on the eyebrows. Not filled in, tweezed, nothing. This was a week after my appointment.
Here are some Anastasia eyebrows on celebrities. Fuller, thicker, bolder beautiful brows set the tone for their whole face.
Camilla Belle. Image credit: Inspa.
Beyonce. Image credit: chiclooking.com
Still interested? Anastasia has an entire makeup line at Sephora centered around brows; click here to see. Biggest advantage to getting this done is that I spend NO time filling them in now. Also, I feel as though I don’t have to wear as much eye makeup because I already look fixed. Maybe it’s a misguided perception, but it is working for me.
Bigger. Bolder. Beautiful. Brows.
