Before you start
Before you even pick up an eyebrow pencil, some advice: Stop trying to make your brows symmetrical above all else.
We all know what it’s like with winged eyeliner—an endless struggle for symmetry. Many of us carry this pursuit of perfection over to our brows, doubling the morning makeup frustrations. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve drawn on my brows, only to have to keep adding to each side to strike an impossible balance.
It wasn’t until I went backstage one fashion week and heard makeup artist Lisa Potter-Dixon explain that eyebrows “are sisters, not twins,” that I realized I had been laboring under a misunderstanding. Just as faces aren’t symmetrical in reality, eyebrows don’t need to be either. In fact, it’s better to accentuate the natural shape of each eyebrow so that it best fits the structure of your face. With the myth of perfectly symmetrical eyebrows dispelled, let’s get into it.
How to prep your eyebrows
I’m partial to an eyebrow gel and spoolie to keep my brows in place, but nothing beats a good old bar of soap. Soap brows have hit mainstream in the past couple of years, thanks to the fluffy-brow crazy—and with the trend has come an arsenal of new products to create the look.
Even so, some pros prefer the OG method. “I swear by Pears soap, straight from the bar,” says makeup artist Naoko Scintu, who regularly works with celebrities like Jodie Comer and Priyanka Chopra. “I just add a little water and brush into brows and it stays perfectly all day.”
How to use an eyebrow pencil
When drawing on individual hairs using your eyebrow pencil, make sure you’re drawing up instead of across. The trick is to make small, sharp movements using the sharp point of the pencil to create the hairlike strokes.
To achieve a more natural look when filling in your brows, think vertical (or at a 45 degree angle at the very most)—never horizontal. If you closely study the direction of your natural brow hairs, you’ll see that they don’t grow across, so if you draw a line that goes against the natural grain, it will look artificial.
How to avoid accidental pencil-thin brows
If you’re after ’90s pencil-thin brows, then this tip isn’t for you, but if you aren’t—take note.