5 expert tips for perfect brows
Updated: Oct. 15, 2012
Beauty brand Benefit prides itself on its brow expertise. Its new book, Raising Eyebrows, is a guide for perfect brows. Here, makeup artist and aesthetician Ashley Manias, the brand’s national training and education director for Canada, shares her top five tips
1. Shaping your brows
Use this simple three-step trick to figure out your ideal brow shape: “First, take your eyebrow pencil and, using a stick, line up the inner corner of your nose with the inner corner of your eye; make a mark with your pencil there. This is where your eyebrow should start. Next, hold the stick at an angle from the outside corner of your nose through the outer corner of your pupil and make another mark-this is where your arch should be. Finally, line up the outer corner of your nose with the outer corner of your eye to make the final mark-your eyebrow should end there.” Use a powder or pencil to fill in from mark to mark to create your best brow.
Image: Courtesy of Benefit Cosmetics
2. Eyebrow symmetry
“Perfect symmetry is not something that anyone should strive for when it comes to their brows.” Manias warns against trying to make them identical, as the over-plucking that it would take to achieve this would result in thinner, less attractive brows. “Remember, brows are sisters, not twins; one will naturally differ from the other.”
Image: iStockphoto.com
3. Trimming your brows
Manias advises using caution when attempting to trim lengthy brows, as it’s easy to make a slip that causes the overall shape to change. Take an eyebrow brush, and brush brows straight up. Then, using small straight-edged scissors, trim only the hairs that go above and beyond the natural brow line. Don’t trim beyond the arch: Taking too much off the “tail” will shorten the brows.
Image: iStockphoto.com
4. Eyebrow makeup
Manias recommends doubling up your brow cosmetics: “When grooming and filling brows, it’s best to use two different products in order to create texture, thus resulting in a more natural, hair-like appearance.” For example, use a combo of powder topped with wax, or pair a pencil with a gel.
Image: iStockphoto.com
5. Grey hairs
Manias says that while plucking a grey hair will not result in having seven more grow in its place (that’s an old wives’ tale), it could create a patchy space in your brow. Instead, salon tinting is one way of adding pigment back short term. “Or, using a tinted brow product-like Benefit’s BrowZings [shown here]-you can disguise grey hairs in an instant. A setting brow gel can also be your best friend when attempting to keep unruly grey hairs in their place.”
Benefit BrowZings Brow Shaping Kit has a tinted wax, a powder, two brushes and mini tweezers (shown in Dark; $35, 4.35 g). High Brow, a creamy pencil, gives a highlighting effect when blended underneath the arch. ($26, 2.8 g)
Related:
• Staff tested: The best eyebrow groomers
• How should you shape your eyebrows?
• 7 makeup tricks that make all the difference
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