Yesterday I was driving home and checked myself in the visor mirror. I realized my eyebrows were looking better than they ever have in my entire life. What was I doing differently? Well, since my bf and I moved in together, I have been plucking a lot less, and I had already worked towards a good arch a while back. After years of over-plucking,  everything was starting to come together nicely.

Growing up, eyebrows were serious business. My mom had a flexible work schedule and pretty much took me everywhere she went. I would watch her get ready a lot of the time in front of her light-up vanity mirror and learned the ways of liquid eyeliner and eyebrow maintenance. She always told me to never pluck above your brows (I never listened and still think there are times when you must) and she plucked strays every single day to keep her brows tidy. She’s a fair heavily freckled red head with the finest of hairs. I am a fair lightly freckled brunette with coarse brows. Once I got started (because it’s really hard to go back once you start), if I didn’t maintain every day, it would look like someone had sprinkled black pepper on my lids. I’m also half Serbian and prone to a tragic unibrow so needless to say, I became a bit obsessed around the age of 13 when these things start to matter to a girl.

Not one to be bossy or overbearing, my mom pretty much let me think that I knew what I was doing, and figured I would have to learn from my own mistakes. The over plucking began. This was in the early 90s when my fashion icon was Kristen McMenamy. Not a good idea. I ruined myself.

Marie Claire Germany 1994
p: Juergen Teller 

Not until about 5 years later did I truly recover from the damage I had done, and broken all my bad habits, as I had learned a few things along the way.

•  Eyebrow trends are ridiculous. Trends come and go too rapidly to be able to recover from them as they pass through. No one is going to think you’re not stylish because you don’t have super thin or thick or straight across eyebrows that happen to be in at the moment. Classic and pretty has always been acceptable and always will be.  (Or you could go super bushy… since it is all the rage these days, as Wendy B points out!) ;)

• There are a few tricks to help guide you in achieving a good starting point, arch location, and end point.

1. The inner corner of each eye should be your starting point. Honestly, I would leave this for last since everyone’s eyes are spaced differently and you’ll know what’s most flattering. Just avoid a unibrow and keep things even, avoiding an angry look. Mine extend a bit over this point and it works for me.
2. Hold a pencil from the edge of the widest part your nose and angle it to the outer corner of each eye. This should be your end point and all stray hairs beyond this are fair game. This tip has always worked for me.
3. The outer edge of the colored part of your eyes should be where the highest part of your arch is. Everything should start descending latteraly from this point and tapering off to your end point in #2.

• I am a devoted tweezer. A few of my girlfriends get theirs waxed regularly but their brows look awful in that growing out stage where they need to be long enough to even get caught by the wax. No way José. I would rather take a few seconds every day when I’m doing my makeup to simply catch a few dark hairs growing in than go a week or more looking that messy. Now, if you have never plucked your brows before or you are a hot mess and overwhelmed with the thought of getting your initial shape mapped out, I would totally let a professional have at it for the first attack. Just make it incredibly clear about what you want. Bring a picture. Go to a reputable salon. Read reviews online and ask around. (Threading is also an initial starting point option but I have never tried it and I believe you still need your brows to be grown out a bit for them to catch, just like waxing.)
• There are a lot of eyebrow tools out there. There’s the upscale Anastasia line that includes stencils and all sorts of things making eyebrow maintenance feel a lot more complicated and expensive than it needs to be.  Here is what I use:

1. Get a magnifying mirror with a light. You have to see what you’re doing. Hairs are tricky devils. I have plucked in natural light and everything seemed fine and then under store lighting, I caught a glimpse in a mirror and had missed a few big dark hairs that seemed to fade away earlier. You can get a decent Conair one for about $30 at Target. I do my makeup with it as well. The magnifying side is the devil. That which has been seen cannot be unseen.
2. Tweezers – different types of hair will respond differently to different types of tweezers. I can’t pull a damn hair out with mom’s tweezers and she can’t with mine. Some have straight tips, angled tips, wider flat interiors that hold onto the hair, textured interiors that hold onto the hair, some have a thinner metal that feels less bulky, etc. Everyone has a pair laying around. Try them out and if you can’t get a grip you need a different style. It should feel intuitive, an extension of your hand. The type that has always worked for me is a $3 Revlon Slant Tip.  
3. Once you get your basic shape down, you may find that you need to fill in a few sparse spots with an eyebrow pencil/powder. Please don’t tweeze around to accomodate these bare areas. Your brows will look wonky. Just pretend they aren’t there while you’re getting your shape down and worry about filling in these little areas later. I use a $3 Rimmel brow pencil that has a tiny blending brush on the cap. It has never failed me in all the years I’ve used it. If you use a powder, get a small sharp angled brush if it doens’t come with one. Try to match your color as closely as possible and don’t leave any harsh lines with your product. Softly blend in the direction of your brows, keeping the color contained in the hair area but also soft.
4. I have a few long eyebrows that I sometimes have to comb up and barely trim with manicure scissors. To keep everything neat and in place all you need is some clear mascara. The cheapest $2 junk brand at the drug store will do just fine. Wipe off any excess clumps and brush over brows in the direction you need them to stay in. Some people spray a bit of hairspray on a tiny mascara brush.

• Now that you have all the tools you need and a basic shape guideline, it’s up to you to show restraint and patience and practice a sense of symmetry. If you have to flip back and forth from one brow to the other to keep things even, then you must.

• Pull the hair out in the direction that it grows – outward!

• I promise you, tweezing becomes less painfull the more you do it. Ice up or use a tooth numbing agent like Baby Orajel if you have to at first. Carefully apply to brows only, let it sit for a couple minutes, wipe it off and pluck away!

• Consider each hair carefully. Very Carefully. It can take up to 2 months for a brow hair to grow back completely.

• The more you pluck, the less often you will have to over time. The constant trauma to the hair follicle will make them slowly give up.

• Have fun being a girl and taking small moments out of the day just to care for yourself and put your best face forward.