Eyebrow Business

As many of you know, Elizabeth Taylor passed away Wednesday, March 23rd. Elizabeth Taylor was exquisite in many regards. Her eyebrows were no exception. She had distinct, dark, beautifully arched eyebrows that will rival the most elegant eyebrows for decades to come. Here is a lovely example of her eyebrows in the DVD cover for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, truly one of my favorite Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor films.

Absolutely flawless eyebrows, right? Well, that got me thinking about all the eyebrows out there that aren't flawless. Having had an obsession with eyebrows for over a decade I felt inspired to create a little guide, if you will, into the wild and wonderful world of eyebrow maintenance!

(Isn't my graphic just lovely? My wonderful husband created it for me in Google SketchUp. Had we been more ambitious there would be eyelashes and better hair, but hey, I wanted an eye and eyebrow and by golly, I got them!)

Eyebrow 101:

There is no one specific shape you must adhere to when grooming your eyebrows. However, the monobrow is never acceptable. You have two eyebrows and they are never supposed to meet each other. Find the brow shape that best works with your face structure and what naturally fits with the basic shape of your brow. You may not be able to do a high arch if you have long skinny eyebrows. And that’s okay. Like people, eyebrows come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. Just as long as your eyebrow does have shape to it – you’re on the right track : )

Eyebrows not as full as you’d like? You are welcome to fill in with an eyebrow pencil. All of us have had bad wax jobs and the hair may have stopped growing on the end, leaving your brows much too short or worse yet, you’ve been left with a gap in your eyebrow. Fill in folks! It’s okay. Do I recommend shaving off your eyebrows completely and drawing them on from scratch every day? No.  I refuse to believe that anyone has such unforgivable eyebrow structures that they must result to removing them altogether to start fresh. If you want to go down that route, I have no advice to offer.

Waxing, Tweezing and Threading.  (Note how I didn’t include shaving as an option. It’s because it isn’t one.)

I first started shaping and grooming my eyebrows when I was twelve. I had some unkempt furry friends looming over my eyes. Despite the fact that they provided a catchall for particulates falling from the sky, they were simply not attractive. I didn’t jump straight into plucking. I went to my trusty salon and had a professional shape and wax them. It gave me a basic structure to follow and gave me an arch.  I tweezed in between waxing and eventually had to give waxing up after an incident where my eyebrows were shaped incorrectly. It takes a long time for your eyebrows to recover after a bad wax job. My advice: when you call your salon find out who does the eyebrow styling the best. Most stylists have individual gifts: color, formal hairdos, cuts, perms and, for a gifted few, they can wax an eyebrow like no one’s business. If you’ve been going to a salon for a long time, then ask your personal stylist. They will be more inclined to give you the inside scoop on who does what best over a receptionist at a salon you hardly ever frequent.

Now, you’ve gotten waxed by the eyebrow master and you are ready to maintain the work. Your weapon of choice: tweezers.

There are hundreds of different options available to you.  In my personal experience you want two things: a good grip and a non-slip handle.  Don’t go with a shiny metal finish on the handle. You won’t get a good grasp on the instrument. Don’t go with a tip that has a smooth finish either. The metal on the inside of the tip should be rough and unpolished, as most tweezers do come. If you get one with a smooth finish you’ll know immediately because you won’t be able to pull a hair off your brow line for the life of you.

Brands: Revlon has an excellent selection with at a variety of price points to suit any budget. I recommend any tool in the Expert Tweezers collection. The Diamond Grip, Control Grip and True Precision also look promising, though I have not personally tried them. If you don’t want to pay more than five dollars for tweezers, but want the nonslip handle, I recommend the brand Trim. They have Trim Easy Hold Slant Tip Tweezers available at CVS for $4.49. CVS also has the Revlon Expert Tweezers Slant Tip available for $6.99.

Now you have your tweezers and you need to do some maintenance.  Most of us have a cosmetic mirror that magnifies the image it reflects.  If you don’t have one, then invest in one.  You can’t effectively pluck your eyebrows if you are leaning over your sink trying to see your target in the bathroom mirror. If you don’t have a vanity to sit at, I suggest using your desk or a dining room table. (Do be sure to clean the table’s surface afterwards. No one wants to eat dinner with hair and skin cells looming around his/her flatware.) You need good lighting as well. If your mirror does not come with lighting built into the frame, as many do, then bring your desk lamp over and adjust accordingly so you find the best lighting and angle for the mirror.

Follow your natural arch or the structure your stylist imposed when waxing. Remember: You can always take more away, but you can’t put it back. Don’t get trigger happy and take out a row of hairs without checking to make sure you are staying symmetrical with your other eyebrow. It is truly an art form. And like any form of art, mastering it can be very challenging. But making both eyebrows uniform is a most rewarding skill to acquire.

Plucking will hurt at first. For beginners, I would describe the process as uncomfortable, but tolerable.

I can only offer advice in regards to plucking with slanted edge tweezers. There are also pointed tips and square tips. Pointed tips are typically only used for removing ingrown hairs and splinters. And I can’t claim to have used square tip tweezers. The general idea is to grab hold of the hair as close to the surface of your skin as possible. You’ll have a better grip on it the closer to the base you are. With a slanted tip, you’ll go in at an angle to grab the hair and in one quick fluid motion you will pull the tweezers away from your eyebrow, continuing in the same direction you were going when you grabbed the hair. Don’t go back in the direction you came from. It’ll hurt more going backwards, then going forwards.

Tip: Keep in mind you are tweezing hair right above your eyeball, and your eyeball is something you really don’t want to scratch with a sharp grooming tool. Never tweeze when tired. Never tweeze when your hands are not perfectly dry. This means no tweezing after baths, showers or water balloon fights.

Now, once you have finished tweezing take a gander at yourself in front of a mirror from different angles. You may find you missed some hairs, especially on the very ends and directly between your eyebrows. These hairs tend to be thinner and less visible, especially for you blondes out there. But never fear if you leave one or two hairs behind. Only the most critical onlooker will take note, but if you’ve executed the rest of your maintenance efficiently, the standard gaze over the lunch table will  warrent you a look of envy, not scorn. Truly, who isn't jealous of symetrical, defined, and beautifully kept eyebrows?

How often should you be getting out your tweezers? Personally, I have to pluck my eyebrows every two days. Some people can let it go for a week, but most of us cannot. If you keep up with the maintenance then you won’t have to have them waxed nearly as often. But if you let them go, you’ll lose the shape and likely need to have a professional wax and reshape them for you.

Last but not least, the magic of threading! I have yet to try this latest trend in eyebrow maintenance, but it’s becoming popular all over the place.  I was introduced to threading by a good friend last fall and she shared this YouTube video with me. The video has had over a million hits, no doubt because it does such a good job of explaining the technique. Salons that feature threading are becoming more available. For example, if you happen to live in the Pittsburgh area, the Ross Park Mall now has a store called Miracle Eyebrows, which uses the threading technique. Having never tried it myself, I can’t recommend it, but I will say that I have heard it is fast, no more painful than tweezing and has longer lasting results than tweezing.  If you’re feeling up for an adventure, give it a go.

Remember, eyes may be the window to the soul, but eyebrows are the window dressing, so keep them classy people!