Ninja Beauty Secrets — Eyebrows

A ninja secret is a tidbit of knowledge or a technique that is a heavily guarded secret… until now. In this column, you will learn techniques for creating a look so perfect it’ll be considered razor sharp perfect. This month we focus on eyebrows. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then eyebrows are essential for framing and enhancing the eyes.

Let’s continue to study and apply the techniques that I present and hopefully by using your newfound knowledge on a regular basis, you will become a seriously good makeup ninja.

Why do we have eyebrows?

Eyebrows have a practical purpose and that is to divert the flow of raindrops or sweat away from our eyes. Eyebrows also help others determine our emotions. Eyebrows that are thin and tweezed are thought to be more attractive than thick, hairy, scraggly ones. When I am asked to design someone’s eyebrows, I use techniques I’ve learned over the past fifteen years to create razor sharp perfect eyebrows. As a prime example of my skills, I point to my own eyebrows that are always kept razor sharp perfect.

Before we start, let me emphasize that if you have razor sharp perfect eyebrows, you will attract much more attention. Some of it might be good and welcomed, but some of it might not be so positive. Men who have razor sharp perfect eyebrows are generally not considered masculine. If you can deal with occasional odd stares and comments spoken about you behind your back, then I would wholeheartedly recommend that you get your eyebrows tweezed to dramatically improve your feminine image.

Razor sharp perfect eyebrows require trimming and tweezing. Start by trimming your eyebrows. I recommend washing and conditioning your eyebrows every day using a moisturizing shampoo and conditioner, such as Aussie Moist. Wash your eyebrows with shampoo in the same manner as you wash your hair. Dab the conditioner on your eyebrows at the start of your shower and try not to get any water on your face for at least ten minutes. This simple act will improve the health of your eyebrow hair over time and make it easier to trim and tweeze it.

Use a small fine-toothed comb. Starting from the base of each section of eyebrow hair, brush the teeth through and comb out towards the ends of the hairs. When all but a few stray or long hairs are left, take a pair of cutting shears and trim them off. Comb the same section again and trim off the stray or long hairs again. Move on to a new section of eyebrow hair and repeat the task. Repeat the same with the other eyebrow.

The next step is tweezing your eyebrows. Shaping them properly to frame your eyes and fit your face is an art. The first few times you tweeze your eyebrows, I recommend “chalking” guidelines on your face using a clear lipliner pencil. Clear lipliner actually looks translucent white on most skin tones and dark hair. Start by looking at your face dead-on in front of a mirror and noting where the sides of your nose end. Extend imaginary lines up the length of your face to eyebrow level. Mark vertical lines from the top of eye level to above eyebrow level. Tweeze all of the hair inside these lines to clean up the area in between the eyebrows. I usually like to take whatever my nose width is and shrink the width a tiny bit and then draw vertical lines using that width. Wipe away the lines when you are done tweezing.

The next step is to determine how thick, or wide, you want the inner part of your brows to be. Eyebrows should never be a uniform width across. They should always start wide and end thin or preferably a point. How wide you wish to make them is up to you, but a guideline I use is the width of the inner eyebrow should be a little smaller than the width of a nostril. I believe that eyebrows should be arched at an angle like Audrey Hepburn’s in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Some makeup experts will say that the shape of your face should determine the shape of your eyebrows and while that is true to a degree, I would say that arched angled eyebrows are a good universally acceptable look.

Take the clear lipliner pencil and place it diagonally where it should hit the middle of the mouth, nostril, and outside iris of the eye and mark the spot on your eyebrow to where the pencil extends. This is where your arch should be. Take the clear lipliner pencil and place it diagonally where it should hit the middle of the mouth, nostril, and outside corner of the eye and mark the spot on your eyebrow to where the pencil extends. This is where your eyebrow should end. One last line: Place your lipliner pencil horizontally from one end of the eyebrow to the other. The inner edge of the eyebrow and outer edge of the eyebrow should be on the same horizontal plane. Mark a line representing this plane on both ends of the eyebrow.

First, tweeze away any stray hairs under the eyebrows that do not appear to line up with any rows of hair. There are always a few or more, especially if you’ve never tweezed your eyebrows before.

Next, tweeze the eyebrow hair one row at a time until the desired shape is achieved. One row of hair means one row along the same row of hair across. You’ll find that the inner part of the eyebrow to the arch requires a lot more tweezing than the arch to the outer tip of the eyebrow. Some makeup experts will tell you to only tweeze under the eyebrows and never above, but I have seen so many unkempt eyebrows that it is worth considering tweezing both the top and bottom of the brows to make them look neater. Trimming will definitely help calm the look of wild eyebrows. I see a lot of older men who’ve never done anything with their eyebrows have the problem of wild, bushy eyebrows.

There is no right or wrong way to tweeze eyebrow hair, but if the pain seems unbearable, try soaking a cotton pad with Sea Breeze and swiping it across your eyebrows before you tweeze. When you tweeze, press down on the skin where the hair comes out of the skin with a finger on your free hand and tug on the hair in the direction of growth with your tweezers and you will find that this simple technique will greatly reduce the pain.

If you are a rank beginner at tweezing, I would suggest marking your eyebrows with clear lipliner. Mark the hair you are going to tweeze. This is almost like stenciling your eyebrows before you work on them. Remember, keep that picture of Audrey close by and if you need to refer to it, look here (will open in a new window).

When you are done tweezing, you’ll probably note that the edges of your inner eyebrows look quite sharp. Soften the corners by tweezing a hair or two at the top and bottom of your inner eyebrows. Leave the outer edge of your eyebrows alone. I prefer them pointy sharp, but you can just make them thin and tapered if you like. Some of you might not have eyebrows that extend all the way to their ideal endpoints. If so, you can always simulate the hair by drawing them in using an eyebrow pencil that matches the color of your eyebrows. You might also have bald patches across the length of your eyebrows that require filling in with this method.

Once you get your eyebrows razor sharp perfect, you may wish to darken your eyebrows with an eyebrow pencil to emphasize them, but I’ve discovered it really isn’t necessary unless you’re going to a glammed-out formal dinner. These days less is more, especially if you plan on going out in the daytime en femme.

A common mistake I see when darkening eyebrows is making them too dark. You want your eyes to stand out, not your eyebrows. The eyes are the main attraction; the eyebrows are supporting cast members. Try using eyeshadow rather than an eyebrow pencil to darken your eyebrows and use a Q-tip to lighten the eyebrow accent if it looks too dark. A common mistake I see when tweezing is creating Howdy Doody or Bozo the Clown eyebrows. Eyebrows should never look like McDonald’s arches. If they do, let them grow back in and start over!

We’ll explore using eyeliner in next month’s column. You will learn how proper eye lining can mean the difference from looking absolutely plain to looking absolutely beautiful. Different lining techniques will be discussed that can be applied to different ethnic groups.

For more ninja beauty secrets, purchase Natural Makeup Techniques or Secrets to an Awesome Makeover from my web site (will open in a new window).

Tags: eye brows

Category: Transgender How To