Your Perfect Eyebrows
How To Create the Perfect Eyebrow For Your Face and Your Look
Eyebrows frame your face and can subtly but dramatically change your appearance. You can create the perfect eyebrow for you with these tips and tricks.
No matter what your colouring, style or face shape, you should never underestimate the impact of your eyebrows. Here are some tips and tricks to help you find and create the ideal eyebrow shape!
The Most Flattering Shape
The most flattering eyebrow shape for any woman of any age, colouring, decade and style is a softly rounded, long brow with a rounded squared-off start, a gentle arch and tapers to a point at the end. The length and thickness of the brow will vary depending on a woman's features, colouring and face shape. Catherine Zeta-Jones' soft and arched brows suit her seductive glamour. And how the same shaped brow but thinner and sleeker on Dita Von Teese suits her retro sex appeal! And the same brow with some added fullness adds to Hayden Panettiere's wholesome surfer-girl style.
Inspiration
First, find a photo of someone whose eyebrows you like. If you have strong features – full lips, a strong nose, large eyes – you will look best with eyebrows that are of medium thickness to very full. Think Angelina Jolie or Scarlett Johansson. You may even look to a fuller look like Salma Hayek's or Beyonce's voluptuous brows.
If you have smaller features – like Jennifer Aniston, Hilary Duff or Dita Von Teese – a medium-thick brow will look best on you.
Shaping Your Eyebrows
- Whether your brows are rounded, straight or heavy, you can shape them into the perfect arch by using this trick. Take a pencil (or other long, straight, narrow object) and hold it vertically along the side of your nose (it should rest against the side of your nostril). Where the pencil hits your brow is where your eyebrow should start. Tweeze all hairs on the other side of the pencil line.
- To find your natural arch, hold the pencil at a right angle starting from your nostril. The pencil should be in line with the outside of your iris when you look straight ahead. And where it rests against your eyebrow, this is where your arch should be. Tweeze hairs from below your brows to create the arch.
- Finally, hold the pencil so that it's in line with the outside corner of your eye while still resting against your nostril. This is where your brow should end. If you like, you can use a white eyeliner pencil to mark the hairs you want to remove. This can help you visualize what your perfect brow will look like, and show you which hairs to remove.
Finishing Your Eyebrows
With a brow comb, clean toothbrush or clean mascara wand, comb up the hairs of your brow. If they're too long, use a pair of manicure scissors to trim them. Be cautious and take off less hair than you think you need to at first and then trim more afterwards if you need to.
After you've got your brows shaped the way you want them, you may need to fill in any sparse or over-tweezed spots with a powder or cream brow colour. Using an angle brush, fill in where you need to with short strokes (you want to imitate the look of hair). You may also need to elongate the end or add to the beginning of your brow.
If your brows are a little on the unruly side, a brow gel can help keep your shape intact.
Tips
- Eyebrows change with the trends – sometimes natural is in, sometimes thick is in. Start with what looks most natural and flattering on you and play with different shades and thicknesses.
- Fuller brows ALWAYS look more natural and make you look younger. Over-tweezing is never flattering. It can be easy to get carried away with the tweezers, so be careful.
- If you're not sure about shaping your brows on your own, go to a professional. Just like a good hairstylist, bring in a picture of what you're looking for and a good eyebrow shaper will be able to tell you what will look good and what won't.
