31 Mar Top tips for perfect eyebrows

Eyebrows were back in a big way this season, with designers like Altuzarra, Derek Lam and Thakoon giving their models thick, boyish brows. Many of us have neglected our eyebrows over the years, either through over-plucking, or no plucking at all. If you want to change that, and get your brows back in good shape à la the catwalks, then read on to see our expert tips from Shavata, eyebrow guru extraordinaire.

It’s ok to get a little bit of help to get your brows into shape. Shavata suggests that even getting them professionally done once a year is enough – it’ll give you an indication of what your brows should look like, and you can maintain them yourself afterwards. We recommend trying threading at Benito Brow Bar – their girls really know what they’re doing, and make it as pain-free as possible. When tidying up your brows in the interim between having them done, always do it post-shower while the pores are open, and do a few hairs from each eye at a time to keep them looking similar.

It’s important to remember that your brows don’t need to match. “No two eyebrows are ever identical; so don’t even attempt to get them the same as you will end up plucking to nothing,” Shavata says, “they say eyebrows are sisters not twins.”

If you’re doing them yourself, it’s sometimes difficult to know what they should look like. Aesthetically speaking, there are some rules of thumb to go by: “Eyebrows should start before the eye (nose side) and not after. Try to keep the shape even – there is nothing worse than a tadpole sitting on top of your eyes.”

So now your brows are manicured to perfection, you need to do some serious aftercare. Make sure you use a soothing aloe vera based gel for the first few days after tweezing or threading, to help relieve redness and calm the area down – we’re big fans of Shavata’s Soothing Gel for this purpose.

Make-up wise, it depends on the look you want to achieve – this season, it’s probably best to use a combination of an eyebrow pencil, gel and highlighter. An eyebrow pencil will help fill in any scraggly areas, and give you a bolder looking brow with a stronger shape, working in much the same way as an eyebrow tint does. Eyebrow gels also help tame brows, and ‘set’ them for the day ahead. If you want to emphasise the shape of your brows further a highlighting pencil will work wonders when traced along the arch of the brow – we like Benefit’s High Brow pencil.

Shavata advises: “When applying make-up to your brows less is always more, you should never be able to see where the make-up starts and where the hairs stop. When holding the brow pencil always holds further down – like you would when sketching, and build up the colour.”