Highbrow Tutorial

Do you notice people brows? They are not really something that you immediately notice, even though they can have quite an impact on the face. A good brow really helps a vintage look

I don't have amazzzing brows. Nor are they completely natural... mine are quite made up. 

But you can see why...

 I let them go wild for as long as I could before I showed you this, my pale overgrown, natural woolly GRANDAD Brows. Complete with patchy bits, a couple of greys (my only ones mind you, for which I am thankful!), uneven, long-haired, fluffy and curly, and they are also a bit scant (ok, that might be my fault for over plucking in the 90s).  

I can hear my brother laughing from here. See how much I love you to share this with you??

To start getting these under control, I brush my hairs up, to get those long ones visible and see who is out of line

 Then I trim them where they stand outside of the rest. Before I learnt to trim, I would pluck these long babies, but that leads to more scant patches, and I don't have enough to start with

 Then I do the same combing them down, and trimming again

 Here we are, with my left eye trimmed, and my right eye untrimmed. You can see what a difference it makes before we even get into plucking

 Then I DYE them. Yip! Some people dye their hair, I dye my brows instead. I really recommend it for fair brow types. I do mine at home now with a pack from the chemist. I dye before plucking because then I can see what I have to work with!

 Follow the instructions on the pack. I've found it goes on better with a old clean mascara brush

 I dab up any dribbles with cleanser or cold cream

While I'm at it I do my lashes too, though they don't last as long and I tend to use mascara anyway. 

And then we wait. I leave mine on longer than the packet says, as I find it fades quite quickly in the first week.  15 mins seems right for me. (Please find out your own best times rather than relying on me, since all dye packs will be different!)

And we wait. This is clearly when Hubby got bored...*Sigh*

 A quick mop up ...

 ...and we are into plucking.   To help get an arched effect I pluck my line high up at the top. I also pluck above the line if necessary, as it is all about getting definition.

 And I taper it quite thinly on the downwards slope. With my grandad brows I also have to watch the pesky ones above my nose. You can see my left brow is already looking in great shape. I like my left brow

 So here we are all trimmed, dyed and plucked. Much more presentable! And yet, for a vintage brow we are not yet done...Now I get out the eyebrow pencil and start really defining it, and filling in the bits I don't grow well myself. I use an eyebrow crayon from MAC in a shade called "lingering".

 Starting with the inside corner, I round out and fatten this bit, especially on my right eyebrow which is shorter and less arched than my left. Some vintage looks are straight up and down at the nose but that doesn't suit me

Then I create the arch in a sweeping curve up to the high point of my brow. I define the edges on the top and the bottom and for me, I keep the bottom line right under the natural hairs, and let the top edge go slightly higher than the hairs to create more plumpness and shape.

 Once I reach the top of the arch I go straight out towards the temple. If you keep shaping the arch and curving on the way down, then you can look a little questionable because the brow comes too close to the eye.
This tail of the brow is so important to complete the look that I extend this line by about 5mm (1/5th of an inch)...or about 7mm if I feel like showing off! It seems strange do this at first, but believe me, know one will ever notice.

Now we have my right eye penciled, left one not. You can see I need to do more filling and fattening up at the nose edge of my right eye brow to match my left eyebrow.

 So here are my finished brows. They are quite a lot stronger than my natural ones eh? 

Once I have eye shadow on it is not nearly as pronounced.

So there you have it, what I do with my eyebrows. Once done they do last quite a while with just a bit of maintenance. I hope you found it useful. My lovely brother would have got his entertainment from it at least!!

I'm sure some of you have particular tricks that differ from mine. Do feel free to share them in the comments so that others can benefit!

Shona x