Beautifully shaped eyebrows with a nice arch are an important part of a polished look. When done well, eyebrow shaping calls attention to your eyes, frames them, and makes them appear more open.
But it's easy to make mistakes when you do it yourself. The most common mistake is over-tweezing into a thin, high, rounded eyebrow that gives your face a permanently surprised look.
Another common mistake of do-it-yourselfers is creating an unflattering fish-hook shape where the thickest part of the brow gets much thinner abruptly. For people with thin, blonde eyebrows, it's easy to take too much off the sides so the brow seems to disappear.
So what's the secret to getting the best brows for your face? I asked Eliza Petrescu, a New York City-based eyebrow designer who is famous for her celebrity clientele and long waiting list at Eliza's Eyes, the brow sculpting salon in Exhale Spa on Madison Avenue in New York City. Based on my personal experience trying to do it myself and getting bad, free eyebrow shapings at makeup counters, I agree with her advice.
Here are Eliza's tips for getting the best eyebrows for your face.
- Don't EVER shape your eyebrows yourself. It's too easy to ruin your whole look with a badly shaped brow.
- Don't have your brows tweezed for free at make-up counters. The people there are make-up artists, not brow experts. They tend to make the same mistakes that people do at home.
- Do find an eyebrow designer who specializes in eyebrows. A good eyebrow designer will create a brow shape that is right for your face shape and the kind of eyebrow you have to work with -- light, medium or full.
- Do build a monthly visit to the eyebrow designer into your beauty budget, just like haircuts, color, and manicures and pedicures. It will cost anywhere from $30 for smaller cities to $120 for a celebrity eyebrow designer like Eliza.
- If you can't afford a monthly visit, don't do anything beside cleaning up the strays that are well below your eyebrow. "You're better off with what God gave you," says Eliza.
- To find the best eyebrow designer in your area, check resources like Allure's "Best of Beauty" issue, which comes our twice a year, or local beauty reportage for recommendations. Start looking at other people's eyebrows. If you see someone with beautiful eyebrows, ask them who did it.
- Don't get your eyebrows waxed if you're using a product like Accutane or Retin-A. It can take off the outer layer of skin.
- Do check out products that can help thin brows look fuller. Eliza has a brow definer to outline the shape, a brow filler to fill in bare spots, and a brow shaper that looks like clear mascara and holds the full, defined brow in place.
