Plucking eyebrows to achieve that perfect, feature-accentuating arch that every woman dreams of, can be an arduous process, but it’s worth the time (and pain!). Our eyebrows frame our faces, and drastically affect the way we look. Here are seven pro tips to help you score killer eyebrows at home.
Pluck Immediately After Showering
The ideal time to pluck your eyebrows is after a shower. Your pores enlarge when hot water and steam hits them, and your skin is at its most clean, both of which will make it a lot easier to grab individual brow hairs with your tweezers. After a shower is also the least painful time to pluck, because the pores aren’t holding the hairs as tightly.
Invest in a Good Pair of Tweezers with an Inclined End
When plucking your eyebrows, nothing is more annoying than not being able to get a grip on a hair. A good pair of tweezers is worth its price in saved time and drastically reduced frustration. Good tweezers will also help you reach those teeny tiny baby eyebrow hairs, allowing you to truly finish the job.
When shopping for tweezers, don’t just consider quality, but also the shape of the end of the tweezers. Tweezers with an inclined end that looks like a slope are much easier to work with than those with a flat end.
Always Pluck Along the Lower Brow Line
Removing hair along the bottom of the brow as opposed to the top looks much more natural and harmonic than plucking along the top, and grows back less awkwardly. If you’re thinning out your eyebrows, always start at the very bottom. When you have the shape you want, you can pluck along the top—but only to clean up dark, stray hairs growing outside of the natural brow. It is natural to have light colored baby hairs at the top of your eyebrows, and these should be left alone for the best look.
Reduce Pain with the Right Technique
Before you begin plucking, stretch the skin between your fingers. Then, pluck individual hairs with quick movements in the direction that they’re growing in. Be sure to pinch hairs as closely to the brow root as possible, in order to avoid breaking them off.
Some people are very sensitive to pain in the brow area. If plucking is still painful after following the other tips here, you can cool your brows with ice cubes after you’ve plucked them.
Brush Your Brows into the Perfect Shape After Plucking
Eyebrow pencils that come with a little brush are great for filling in very thin or light colored eyebrows. You can use the pencil and the brush to give your eyebrows the perfect shape and color, and to fill in the blanks if your brows have thin spots. To keep your brows looking natural, make sure to choose a pencil the same color as your natural brow, or one shade darker.
See a Professional
Getting your eyebrows waxed is relatively affordable, and if you aren’t happy with the current shape of your brows, it may be worthwhile to grow them out then have them waxed into the perfect shape at the salon. After you’ve had them waxed once, you can keep the shape easily and indefinitely by simply plucking the hairs that were removed as they grow back.
Don’t Get Too Close
It’s natural for us as we pluck to lean as closely as possible into the mirror, but this can actually work against us. Keep a couple feet between yourself and the mirror so that you can see your entire face. This will give you perspective as you shape your brows. When you’re finished shaping and ready to start fine tuning, then you can lean in closely to remove the stray hairs that can’t be seen from far away.
