Mar 10
5
How not to look old: Tame those brows!
When I was younger, I had thick dark eyebrows. There was even a time when I almost had a “uni-brow” and had to constantly pluck them to keep from looking like the young Brooke Shields. What the heck happened? No more thick brows, and I seldom have to tweeze. I even color them now to give them definition.
In her book How Not to Look Old, Charla Krupp says nothing ages you like bushy unkempt eyebrows, shapeless brows, tweezed-to0-thin brows, drawn-on brows or gray brow hairs. For a feature that gets so little of our attention, nicely groomed eyebrows can transform your look and truly make you look years younger. A nice arch can give you an instant facelift and will frame your eyes while making you look more sophisticated.
To get “Wow-brows”, start with a professional eyebrow shaping. Schedule an appointment with a well-known eyebrow expert and get the shape and size that is perfect for your face. After that, it is easier to maintain with occasional tweezing, and just go in periodically to make sure you still have perfect arches. Ask around for references before you go to avoid ending up with a disaster that can’t be fixed.
If you want to do it yourself, get an eyebrow stencil kit, like the Senna Cosmetics Form-a-Brow Kit. Choose a color that’s closest to your natural color, then select the stencil that’s closest to your real brow shape. Line the stencil up on your brow, color it in, and when you remove the stencil, the hairs that aren’t colored are the ones you remove. Voila! Perfect eyebrows in your very own home salon.
Once you have your eyebrows shaped, you need to fill in the color. Use a sharp eyebrow pencil to draw hairs where there aren’t any, or use brow powder to give more definition. Use a sweep of clear brow gel or tinted eyebrow mascara, like the ones at beauty.com or Maybelline’s Define-a-Brow for a finishing set.
And if you don’t have enough brow hairs to create a beautiful lush look, there are actually brow extensions–individual eyebrow hairs that are applied to your own just like eyelash extensions–and eyebrow prosthetics, a synthetic brow applied with an adhesive (I immediately think of Groucho Marx, but these really do look good, and would be a much better alternative to drawing eyebrows on if you’ve totally lost them) Check them out at NuBrow.
Read previous tips on how not to look old.
