Your first attempt at shaping your own eyebrows doesn't need to be traumatic, if you work slowly, cautiously and know what brow shape you want before you pick up the tweezers. The most important rule to remember when you shape your brows with tweezers is that it's better to under-tweeze than to over-tweeze. Beauty guru Paula Begoun and hair removal expert Andrea James of HairFacts.Com suggest helpful brow-shaping strategies.
Step 1
Define your horizontal parameters. Avoid "short-brow syndrome," which occurs when you pluck too many hairs away from your nose and temples. James suggests using a pencil. First, place the pencil along the side of your nostril in a vertical presentation. Then place it diagonally against the outer eye corner so that it points toward your brow bone. This gives you a good visual of where your eyebrows should start and end.
Step 2
Sketch it in. Using a lip or eyebrow pencil or pencil-style concealer, draw in your ideal eyebrow shape. Pay close attention to where you designate the arch; this should fall at the back third of the eye, Begoun says--not in the front third, closer to your nose. Avoid going for the uniformly thin "rainbow" brow look. This look can make you appear dated, Begoun cautions.
Step 3
Prepare your workspace. Sterilize your tweezers in rubbing alcohol--James advises using wide-gripped, slanted-tip tweezers for eyebrows. Set up a magnifying mirror in a well-lit area. Begoun suggests using a mirror with 5X magnification, so you can see each eyebrow hair clearly. Place a clean, dry towel close to your tweezing hand so you'll have a sanitary place to rest your tweezers when you need to take a breather.
Step 4
Tweeze eyebrow hairs one by one. Clasp the hair with the tweezer tips firmly and tug gently in the direction of the hair growth--don't yank, James advises. Avoid grasping several hairs at once, and mind that you don't get your skin caught in the tweezer tips. Tweeze all of the hairs that fall outside of your sketched-in brows. Pause occasionally to look in the mirror and assess your work to make sure that both brows are symmetrical. If you must, mutter the cardinal rule of brow tweezing: "Too little is always better than too much."
Step 5
Take it easy on hair above the brow, Begoun advises. It's fine to tweeze the fine, stray hairs that threaten to encroach into your temples. However, don't tweeze into the natural brow line closest to your hairline. Thinning your brows from above imparts a harsh, unnatural look.
Step 6
Clean up the strays. After you've (hopefully) gotten your brows into a nice symmetrical shape, use an old toothbrush and brush your brows upward toward the hairline. Using small scissors, carefully clip any hairs that are too long. Tweezing these is impractical, Begoun says, as you can create obvious gaps and patches in the line of your brows.
Step 7
Cool it all down. Any form of depilation can be painful, leaving your skin temporarily red and inflamed. Apply a damp washcloth or cool compress to your freeshly-tweezed brows and congratulate yourself for a job well done.
Tips and Warnings
- Did you forget the cardinal rule of tweezing? Are your brows now too thin and sparse? No problem. To fill in eyebrows, Begoun suggests using a brow powder, eyebrow pencil or eye shadow closest to the color of your natural brows. If you've never shaped your own eyebrows before, it may be helpful to seek the services of a skilled cosmetologist to tweeze your brows into an attractive shape. This makes "clean up" tweezing much easier when hairs start to grow back in.
- Avoid using moisturizers and lotions on an area you wish to tweeze--this makes the hair slip through the grasp of your tweezer tips.
Things You'll Need
- Pencil
- Tweezers with a wide grip and slanted tip
- Rubbing alcohol
- Magnifying mirror
- Clean towel
- Eyebrow pencil, lip pencil or pencil-style concealer
- Old toothbrush
- Small scissors
- Cool compress
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