How To Shape Your Brows At Home

Who here has had a life altering brow waxing experience at a salon? Unfortunately that has happened to me several times. I came to learn that the only one I can trust with my brows is myself. Though it took some practice to perfect what shape works best for me, it's saved me some dollars, and a whole lot of embarrassment.

Shaping

Start by taking a long, thin brush or pencil and anchor one end to the corner of  your mouth, and the middle to the side of your nose. This will show you where the front of your brow should land.

To find where the highest part of your arch should be, again anchor the brush to the corner of your mouth, the middle to the outside edge of your iris, and where the end lands is where your arch should be. This is just a guide to get a rough idea of where things should be, but as you can see, I like my arch to be a little further out.

Next to find where the tail of your brow should be, start at the corner of the mouth, line it up with the outside corner of your eye, and this will show you where the tail should end. Again, I like to extend mine out a little further. Feel free to move things around slightly, but always return back to this method as a starting point.

When shaping your brows, try to avoid the shape pictured above, it's a very unflattering shape that I myself used to do (cringe). I prefer to to follow the line all the way to to where the brow arches downward, like the photo below. Does this make sense? I sure hope so!

Those are my tips for how the brows should be shaped, now let me show you how I actually do this. First take a spoolie brush and brush the brow hairs upward. This lets you better remove the stray hairs and create a sharp line.

Next, remove any stray hairs that are outside your desired shape with a good pair of tweezers. I recommend Tweezerman tweezers every time. Pluck only a couple hairs at a time because it is very easy to get carried away and suddenly have over done things. If you are doing a heavy duty job and completely changing the shape of your brows, make sure to only remove one row of hair at a time.

Remove a few hairs, then sit back and look at your entire face. If looking at your brows only super close up, they will not look the same when you take a step back. Slow and steady wins the race. Make sure you remove stray hairs in your unibrow and above your brow as well. I would have a sensational unibrow if I didn't pluck it.


Filling In

Now that you have shaped your brows just how you like, its time to fill them in. When filling mine in, I try to make them full, thick, and dark, but still as natural as possible.

My favorite tool to use is a thin brow pencil, such as the Anastasia Brow Wiz or the Nyx Micro Brow Pencil. I go into detail on the Nyx brow pencil in my 2015 Makeup Favorites post.

Starting at the front of the brow, make light upward strokes to mimic the direction of your natural brow hairs. The front of your brows should be the lightest in color so be sure not to apply too much pressure.

Next, define the upper and lower edge of the brow. You don't want to draw one solid line, this doesn't look natural, instead use strokes that mimic the look of actual brow hairs. This is also where you want to fill in the middle if you have any sparse areas.

Last fill in the tail of your brow. Mine is very short and sparse so this is where I have the most work to do.

After you've done all your filling in, take the spoolie again and brush out any harsh lines. Then slap on some brow mascara so the hairs stay in place all day and you're done!

Please comment below if you have any further questions or need something clarified. Thank you so much for stopping by!