The Truth About Shaping Your Eyebrows

Eyebrows are a frame to your face and eyes. They are much more important to your overall look than what most people imagine.  Take a bit of time to look at the faces around you.  Pay attention to how their eyebrows define their face.  Your eyebrows define your face too.

Everywhere you look, you'll get a cookie cutter method on shaping your eyebrows.  If everyone followed those suggestions, we'd all have eyebrows that look the same and how boring is that?  You do need to address your eyebrows, and you do want them to look well-defined and well-groomed.  But please don't follow the "rules".  Make your own rules for shaping your own eyebrows because they are YOUR eyebrows, they are unique to your unique look.  So let's get real about how YOU should be shaping your eyebrows.

There is honestly very little that you should do to shape your eyebrow and here is the truth about what will make your eyebrows look best on your own face:

• First off, Pluck your eyebrows!  Plucking is so much more effective than shaving, and not as painful or expensive as waxing.  Besides, who wants ugly stubble like that two days after you shave? There is too much room for error.  Plus, if you pluck, eventually the hair will stop growing back so much and then you won't have to deal with it quite so much.

• Get some good quality tweezers for the job too.  Cheapy ones might be easy on your wallet, but they aren't going to do the job that a better quality tweezer will do for you. These things last forever anyway, so get a good one for the job.

• Now, get a small brush and brush eyebrows straight up.  Do you have any extra long brows?  Clip those to be the same length as the others.

• Pluck your uni-brow.   Don't have a uni-brow?  Look again, chances are it's just lighter and finer hair, but it's still hair.  Get rid of it.

• Pluck the stray hairs.  You know, the ones that merge your eyebrow line into your hairline, the ones underneath and over the top of your brow that leave you looking like an old Italian man?  Get rid of those too, but don't go too far into the bulk of your eyebrow, you only want to get rid of the obvious strays at this point.

• Now, for the trickier part.  Most people will tell you to hold a pencil to create some sort of specific line, blah, blah, blah.  OLD NEWS!  Throw that idea out.  Also, stay away from those "eyebrow stencils" - can you say "YUCK!"?  Instead, look at your face and follow your instincts.  Keep your eyebrow on the natural lines as much as possible.

• Step away from the mirror.  You can't know the perfect shape to go for if you can't see the effect it's going to have on your whole face.  What shape you ask?  Keep it natural looking and just slightly shape them.  Consider if your eyes are close-set.  If so, pluck just a bit extra from the inner eyebrow line to open up the eye area and make it look like your eyes are a bit further apart.  It's just the opposite for wide set eyes, keep the inner eyebrow closer together to bring the effect of your eyes being closer together.

• Tread lightly when it comes to shaping your eyebrows.  Less really is more, pluck a hair at a time until you have the desired effect.  If you overpluck by one or two hairs, they will grow back, but at least you didn't totally ruin your eyebrow shape by only one or two overplucked hairs.

Tips for Tweezing:

• Use a warm wash cloth on your brows to open pores and loosen up the hair follicle for easier plucking.  Determine which hairs need plucked and hold skin taut to create less tugging.  Pluck in the direction that the hair grows.

• Put all thoughts of what you "think" is the eyebrow look out of your head and work with what you have.  Chances are, with just the minimal amount of work you will have a gorgeous natural look that is yours alone.

What about eyebrow makeup?

Eyebrow makeup can be in a powder form, or pencil form.  If your eyebrows are much paler than your natural hair color, then you'll probably want to look into darkening them a bit.  Go lightly with eyebrow makeup though.  If you use the powder kind, apply in short strokes.  If you use the pencil type, then go with short lines, mimicking the eyebrows themselves.  The goal is to enhance your eyebrow, without the makeup being noticeable.

Shaping your eyebrows is worth the time and effort. Just take your time and keep them natural looking.  It's really as easy as that!