The Sunday News
Rutendo Chidawanyika
EYEBROWS are important. Throughout history, eyebrows have been indicators of social status, gender and authority. In earlier centuries the shaven forehead and almost absent eyebrows were seen as a symbol of sexual purity. Times have changed though, brows have grown from thin to thick, which is the current brow trend.
We all want perfect eyebrows but sometimes no matter how well we try to fill in our brows, they just don’t turn out quite right.
This is because most people pencil in eyebrows which do not have a good shape. All eyebrows have a certain shape so it is a matter of carving and refining them.
For those who shave off their eyebrows only to redraw pitch black lines or red lines, you are doing it all wrong. The eyebrow pencil is used to fill in the gaps and bring out the shape that already exists. Somehow women make it seem like having good eyebrows is impossible, but everyone can have perfect eyebrows.
Women who end up with bad looking eyebrows make the following mistakes:
1 Tweezing everywhere (above brows)
You are not supposed to tweeze above the brows, this can disrupt the natural arch. Since the hairs above the brows tend to be finer and sparse, you can mistake them for bushy unnecessary hairs. When tweezing stick to just under your brows unless you
REALLY need to do some maintenance above the brow.
2 You don’t know when to stop
Tweezing can be dangerous if you don’t have a plan before you start. Try highlighting the hairs you want to remove in order to achieve your ideal shape before you start. This way you won’t risk ending up with the 1990s pencil thin eyebrows.
3 You are trying to match your eyebrows perfectly
Eyes are not identical, your eyebrows should not be either. If your eyebrows looked exactly the same that would be weird because they would be the only feature on your face that is perfectly symmetrical. Remember eyebrows are sisters, not twins.
They are not supposed to look exact.
4 You are not following your natural arch
All eyebrows have a natural arch, whether slight or defined. The trick is to enhance where your arch naturally occurs rather than create a new arch somewhere else along your brows. If it’s hard to tell where your arch naturally is, take the highlighting pencil and trace the upside of your brow, do the same for the bottom side, making sure the arch lines up.
If the above mistakes are corrected, a perfect brow can be achieved. For those who have challenges tweezing, you can get help from professionals. You can decide what works for you, threading, tweezing or using a razor. After you’ve had your brows shaped once, all you have to do is maintain it. Before you start pencilling in, comb your hairs up with an eyebrow comb or toothbrush to see where they need to be filled in, starting from the front working towards the tail of the brow. Next you’re going to use a matte shadow or concealer that goes underneath the hairs to fill in density, especially where there are sparse spots, gently shading to bring out shape.
Use a pencil and concealer that complements your skin tone, brown usually works well for most. Another option to determine a good starting place is to obtain eyebrow stencils. Hold up various stencils to your eyebrow and see which shape most closely matches what you already have.
Remember our faces have different shapes, so do our eyebrows. The eyebrows do not have to be straight all the time, you can go for rounded, arched, steep arched or even s-shaped. It all depends on what suits you. Get a good brow!!!
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