Your BFF (Beauty Find Friday): Eyebrow Beauty 101

Beautiful young woman tweezing her eyebrows while looking at the mirror via Shutterstock

Fact: When your brows are over-plucked or a little too a la Brooke Shields, it can raise a few eyebrows.

Although it’s best to leave your brow waxing, threading, and shaping to a beauty professional, there might be times when you need to take matters into your own hands. To ensure fuller and more gorgeous arches for your wedding, we turned to local makeup artist Katrina Hess for a little advice. She’s a four-time Best of Boston winner and Allure magazine’s “The Best of the Best” for eyebrow shaping, so clearly, she knows what she’s talking about.

1. When shaping brows, use a full mirror to see your entire face in a well-balanced light. There shouldn’t be any shadows that might hide the current state of your brows.
2. Avoid magnifying mirrors if possible. Can we get an amen to not using those self esteem-crushing things?
3. Let brows grow out several weeks. Depending on your hair growth, some brows take longer, especially if they’ve been over tweezed, so be patient. Don’t attack until they’re ready.
4. If you need to, fill in your sparse areas with a brow gel or eyebrow pencil one shade lighter than your natural hair color to prevent the brows looking too dark and unnatural. Remember: color on color looks darker.
5. For a fuller look, lightly brush a brow powder using a color that matches your pencil. Start applying the powder at the top of the brow at the highest point (a.k.a. your arch). Next, fill in the tail. Lastly, the front of the brow. But when it comes to this section, be light-handed. This is where too many people fill in with too much color and it can look unnatural. Remember we want to lift the brows, not droop them.
6. For a brow that doesn’t need color, just use a clear brow gel to brush up and over for a more polished look.
7. Use a higher pencil lighter in a natural skin tone just under the brow to create a “lifted” look.

A few of Hess’s favorite go-to brow tools: Damone Robert for brow pencils, powders, and gels; Laura Mercier pencils; Hour Glass pencils; Benefit highlight pencils, and Make Up For Ever waterproof gels.

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