These eight simple tips will help give you a more confident pluck. Photo by Martin-dm/istockphoto.com
The internet is full of tips on achieving the perfect brow. Rather than regurgitate the usual–measure from the tip of your nose diagonally to find your arch, etc–here are eight OTHER tips to help you achieve beautiful brows.
- Brush and trim your brows.
It’s tempting to just get plucking, but don’t skip this step. Brush the brows up first, and trim whatever is above the natural hairline. But don’t stop there! Do the same brushing the brows down. Then smooth them out to their natural shape. You can use a small brow comb, but a clean (unused!) toothbrush will also do the trick. Make sure to use a small brow scissor, however. This is not something you can do with kitchen sheers!
- Use a slanted tweezer.
Don’t use a needle nose one. Once you get the hang of it, a slanted tweezer allows you to move quickly across the brow–pluck, pluck, pluck–without having to pick up the tweezer. This is a spectacular time saver.
- Witch hazel is your friend…
A pre-pluck swipe with witch hazel will ensure that you have a clean surface to work on, while not drying out your skin like straight up alcohol. I swipe before and after plucking.
- But DO alcohol swipe your tweezer.
Wipe down your tweezer before and after with 70% Isopropyl alcohol. It will kill any bacteria that’s festering on your implement!
- Use a black or white eye pencil to help guide you.
It’s hard to remember where that “perfect arch” measurement begins and ends. Sometimes I will mark it with a pencil, which helps not only give a visual of where I need to pluck, but also gives me a sense of what the brows will look like when finished. I prefer using a white pencil (I find that darker pencils tend to mix too easily with my brow color, making it hard to see the lines). When finished, the lines can be wiped away with the witch hazel.
- Gently, gently, gently (and I mean gently!) pull your skin taught.
This will feel awkward at first, but use the thumb and index finger of your free hand to gently pull the skin around where you are plucking taught. Then pluck out the stray hairs in the direction of the hair growth. Hair slides out so much easier and it will minimize the pain. Just release and check after plucking a few hairs to make sure you are removing what you want to remove–tighter skin can shift the brows out of line at bit.
- Resist the temptation to go overboard.
Sometimes, I get into a groove with the plucking and it gets addictive. I could go on forever. And then I end up with brows that are way too thin. Be conservative. Brows that are too thin can make a face severe. You don’t want to spend the next few weeks being asked why you are so angry.
- Move from brow to brow, but don’t worry about being “uniform.”
Just like one foot can be slightly bigger than the other, brows are not uniform in appearance, so don’t try to force them to look exactly alike. But do pluck a bit from one side, and then move to the other, to ensure that they are somewhat similar in shape and size.
