I just read that an excellent eyebrow can erase five years from a woman’s life, which made me laugh at first glance; I couldn’t imagine which five years I’d choose!
But seriously, friends, eyebrows are a total game-changer. And the trend right now, thanks to the stunning Kate Middleton and a throwback to Audrey Hepburn, is an under-plucked aristocratic arch. It’s a lush look that doesn’t require tweezers as much as restraint and a good pencil. I’ve heard rave reviews about this one, by the way.
Speaking of restraint, someone years ago told me that our eyebrows stop growing back after a certain age. Is this true? Please say no! And if it is…what age?!
What about you? Do you tweeze, thread, visit a professional, own a drawer-full of brow beauty products, or are you au natural? Your stories and advice are always so much better than a salon appointment!
{ 59 comments… read them below or add one }
Ha. I love your blog and how we can go from talking about lovely things like Paris and gorgeous linens and then on a coin flip talk about….eyebrow shaping. You’re so great.
That being said, I’ve always liked a more natural eyebrow. So I just tweeze and follow the old rule of following the corners of your eyes up and out and cleaning up the area around my natural brow shape. Having a thicker, more natural eyebrow is more my style than having any heavily shaped and thinned brows anyways.
I tweeze, with the occasional appt at my favorite spa to get them waxed…
I can’t manage a brow pencil though…I don’t know how to make it look right in real life – it is fine in photos, but just seems harsh on my face in the day. Maybe that’s because I rarely wear any makeup at all, so even when I am ‘made up’, I look fairly natural!
This photo makes me want to break out the powders and pencils and play a bit!
I’m 32, and I’ve been tweezing for half my life. I rarely need to tweeze anymore, though, because the follicles that have been plucked over and over again don’t produce brow hair anymore. So I don’t think there’s a certain age they stop growing, I think they just “learn” to stop producing hair if you rip it out enough. ;)
Ditto everything Connie said, from your being great to a more natural eyebrow. I have to pluck every single day to keep up with my brows. I’ve had them waxed a few times, and it is really nice to have them shaped a bit that way, but I can’t justify the expense. I can’t imagine I will ever need an eye pencil (my mom still plucks every day too), but who knows.
Isn’t it cool how black Audrey’s eyes are? Such an intense picture. Love.
Oh – also really fun to see ads for the Boston Pops on here! I already have my tickets. It’s one of our holiday traditions!
Your post got me wondering what was up in the world of eyebrows so I googled eyebrows and came across this site. http://delicatedetails.tripod.com/id23.html
It horrified and saddened me all at the same time. The things women (and men) do to themselves in the search for beauty.
i wax my own eyebrows because I am that DIY. And the thought of someone else doing it gives me nightmares. I don’t over do it with the shaping and try to leave them on the thicker side. i’ve never tried a pencil because they are already so dark, but maybe i should?
I never touch my own eyebrows…I’m too much of a wimp to tweeze because I think it hurts so much. I have my eyebrows waxed at the salon about every 10 weeks or so.
Eyebrow threading all the way. Trick is to find a good ‘eyebrow lady’ who will thread your eyebrows perfectly.
I think my brows are rebelling from years of waxing and tweezing… from the random gray hairs I find there (!) to that rogue, mutant hair which grows an inch while I sleep, it seems like a full time job keeping my brows in line!
I take great pride in my thick eyebrows, but I leave the taming to the professionals. I’ve had my brows sugared a few times — less pain and redness than waxing and no breakouts (waxing always seems to irritate my skin).
I actually don’t do anything. I like to say that I was blessed with one perfect out of the box feature… my eyebrows. Would that it could have been my body, right? Unfortunately, it means that when thicker eyebrows are in, I can’t do much about it. But I don’t have to pluck or shape or anything so that’s one less thing!
I was taught how to self wax my brows when I was about 15 or so and have used that method since. I’m pretty lucky with a nice natural arch, so I just grabbed the rebels and kept them clean and kind of full. However, as stated above, I’m not sure if they have stopped growing or just given up, but since my late 40′s I now use “TweezerMan” and grab the one or two strays about every six months. (wishing I could say that about my new mustache, I guess I’m just working my inner Freda. Now sitting here thinking about it, my leg hair is much less now. hmmm, that was a daily shave, now more like an afterthought once a week. Dang, I got old!)
i use an eyebrow razor. it’s teeny tiny, doesn’t hurt, and takes half the time of tweezing. i will never go back to tweezing. i got mine at a sally hansen store, but i’ve even seen them at walmart, so just keep your eyes open for them.
Great post! I completely agree that eyebrows can make all the difference. It’s the one non-surgical procedure that can really change your appearance for the better. After years of plucking and feeling that my brows weren’t quite right, I went to one of D.C.’s best eyebrow groomers. She showed me where I was over-plucked, under-plucked, and how to make the perfect arch. After going to her for several years, I’m confident enough to do my own brows now, though I may go in every so often for a touch-up.
Aw, love Audrey Hepburn….gorgeous. I’m in the au natural club. My brows are wide, with a good arch but not thick and lush. Just average with a stray here or there. No plucking for me, though; I’m a wimp. I’ve tried filling them in before when I’ve wanted a more prominent brow but I’m not that crazy about it. So for me, I comb them & keep in place with a little spritz of hairspray on my brow brush and I’m all done.
I leave my eyebrows natural, except for I sometimes tweeze any stray hairs that may pop up in the middle. I used to overpluck them like mad when I was a goth, but luckily they grew back. I also rarely wear makeup so I never fill them in with an eyebrow pencil.
Me too! One day having make up done for a wedding the Mac consultant said something like, “Your eyebrows are nice and thick, which is really in right now.” And I thought, hmm, was that a sort of sideways cutdown? Hahaha. Mine are kind of light, so it probably wouldn’t hurt me to fill them in a little with a pencil if I was wearing makeup… but then I barely wear lip gloss, so who cares, right?
By the time I was paying attention to eyebrows thin was in and mine were out. I have had to tweeze about every other day for years and now when I’d like them to grow out, they kind of don’t. Still have to keep the strays tended to.
I go to a salon but she does them naturally – then I pluck them so I don’t have to go all of the time (just the strays).
My mom plucked too much when she was young and they never grew back. She got a tattoo (she is Asian and they tattoo eye liner, lipstick liner etc…it’s pretty common).
I don’t want that to happen to me so I make sure who I go to does not strip away my eyebrows it really makes your face!
TN
http://www.etsy.com/shop/tnave
I was an Anastasia Eyebrows devotee when I was a single working gal. Now I’m a married mother of two with very little excess cash, so I tweeze the strays myself at least once a week and use Anastasia products to keep them in line…love love love their brow pencil. Oh how I miss getting my eyebrows professionally done!
about them not growing back after a certain age…. i can say that my grandma plucked ALL hers out (was a trend when she was young) and she still does not have eyebrows. hers are all pencil! (it is funny to see her first thing in the morning) also, have you noticed that whoopi goldberg doesn’t have eyebrows??? x
I leave mine natural (thick). I used to pluck and tweeze but it wasn’t worth the pain. Besides my grandmother always liked my brows bushy… she said I had Brooke Shields eyebrows. I have just learned to embrace them now.
I’ve been tweezing/waxing longer than I care to remember (and do it myself unless my hairdresser SIL is around to do it for me). I was blessed with the dreaded uni-brow.
BUT I definitely don’t need to do as much now as I did when I first started. So as others have said, I think those poor follicles just give up after awhile. My favorite aunt always had to draw on her eyebrows. She said she’d had them waxed off so much when that was in, that they stopped coming back! Eep!
For brows like mine even this “aristocratic arch” requires some plucking and waxing! I hope they do stop growing
Threading! I used to wax, but I prefer threading to waxing, for me it looks more defined, neater and cleaner and it lasts longer.
On the Today show this morning, Bobby Brown said that eye shadow is actually the best option when trying to fill brows, applied with a slanted brow brush. It looks softer and more natural. For brunettes she recommends a chocolate brown.
I go natural and about every so often when things start to look out of place, will get a wax at the salon. Only for special occasions do I fill in and line my brows to make them stick out.
If there is one ‘little extra’ thing I can do to catch my husband’s eye, it’s to tweeze my eyebrows!! I’m a do-it-my-self-er, and always have been. I take a subtle approach that I don’t trust anyone else to. His reaction started out as, “I can’t put my finger on it, but you’ve been exra-attractive the last few days.” But now he knows; if he’s thinking I look extra pretty, he’ll ask, “have you tweezed?”
Perhaps I let myself go a little too long in-between that he notices :/
I’ve heard that if you over tweeze or over wax they won’t grow back. Mine keep growing back. I get mine waxed by someone I trust. They end up looking natural but clean, no stray hairs.
I get threaded and tweeze in between appointments. I really love the “natural” brow look and stick with it consistently. I think they frame my face nicely more than thin brows would. I just use a MAC pencil and brush them daily. It’s pretty low maintenance.
My mother swears that she had her eyebrows professionally plucked once back in the 70′s when the trend was first popular and that they never grew back. I don’t ever remember her having eyebrows. She has always penciled them in. I have seen pictures with her with eyebrows, so I’m sure she is telling the truth. Needless to say I have never had my brows professionally plucked or waxed. I just get the stray hairs myself. It would be my luck that my wouldn’t grow back either.
I just pluck them myself…at 53….it’s all about keeping as many of those tiny hairs as possible….when one decides to grow it gray and stick straight out….kind of like my own personal unicorn. =)
I go to a professional about every 5 weeks for waxing and a brow dye. I love the dye more than the waxing. No pencil necessary. I tweeze in between waxing and wish I could dye on my own in between too!! I’m always amazed after my appt how ‘finished’ my face looks with just mascara and lip gloss on. I’m a no fuss make-up kind of gal but eyebrows are important to me!
It’s really really easy to dye your own eyebrows! Eyelashes are harder!
I pluck and dye my own, and I have had them professionally shaped which was awesome but I’ve never gotten around to doing that again.
To dye your own eyebrows you can buy a kit from the chemist or beauty section and it is very cheap and lasts a year.
Without getting into too much detail you just need Vaseline to protect the skin and then slather on the dye… Gosh it’s crazy easy.
Dint DIY eyelash dye yourself unless youre really desperate :)
I’ve been plucking my eyebrows since elementary, beginning with mitigating my once impressive uni-brow. I’m 27 and I basically have no hair growth between the two anymore. But I didn’t realize that I could pluck under my eyebrows until highschool, so I am still plucking under the arch daily (I’m hairy). Once in a while, for special occassions, I get the long, clear hairs waxed above my eyebrows. My eyebrows grow pretty thickly on the inside half, but I really should use a pencil for the outer edges which don’t grow very well.
I also trim my eyebrow hairs because they grow long. I’m skeptical of any claims that eyebrow hairs stop growing as you get older though. I mean, have you seen Andy Rooney?
http://www.jiveturkeyjives.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/rooney1.jpg
Thin brows were “in” in the 70′s and I over-plucked and some of them have never grown back. I tweeze the stray hairs and I have found that at 52 I sometimes have to tweeze ABOVE my brow line because, while they haven’t grown back in the brow line, they grow about an inch above the line. Ugh! I am learning to use pencil too. What we women do for beauty!
I tweeze and trim.
I can testify that if I put nothing else on in the morning, a “done” eyebrow makes one look awake and fresh. Once I discovered this fact I rarely go anywhere without my eyebrows done. I tweeze them myself and trim them as needed. I followed the tutorials in the fashion mags–using the pencil along the outside of the nose to inside of the eyebrow trick, and cleaning up the arch, until I knew what I was doing.
I naturally have almost no brow on the outside arch, so I fill them in with pencil. I ALWAYS have people asking me where I get my brows done.
I haven’t tried a brow pencil, but my brows are pretty thick. I used to wax but now I just brush, trim, and tweeze. I get a lot of compliments on them!
Love this Audrey pic!! I tweeze a tiny bit. I used to have thick brows and around the time Kate Moss became popular I started tweezing too much. They grew back in some, but never back to past glory ;( Would like to try a pencil for more dramatic night time look, but worry about smudging bc oily skin. hmmmm
I lightly tweeze – I’ve always had thicker eyebrows and I like them. I just had them waxed for the first time (family wedding last weekend) and my husband thinks they looks weird, so I won’t be doing that again. ;) My favorite trick to making mine look good is eyebrow mascara (I don’t know if that’s really what it’s called). I got mine at Sephora, it comes in different shades, and you just swipe it on your brows with a mascara-type brush. It looks natural, gives them some fullness, and keeps them in place all night, in case yours (like mine!) like to move in funny directions. :)
Funny you should mention eyebrows, here’s a quote from Jack Black…and a pic of someone really working the brows!
http://twitpic.com/6qun8m
My advice is….don’t do it! Or do it as little and as minimally as possible. I had mega brows when I was in high school, and yes, they needed some pruning. But I got a bit over zealous as time went on, and I probably plucked more than I should have. Sometime in my thirties, the hairs stopped growing back. And I wish that I had more of the fullness that I originally possessed.
Tweeze, it’s almost a zen like ritual. And a good pair of tweezers…worth their weight in gold! I inherited, yes you read that right, my Mothers tweezers after she passed away. I brought them along on a trip to Florida back in 2002, left them behind in the hotel. It was almost worth the cost of airfare to retrieve them!
I tweez, lightly. I have the reputation among family and friends with always waking up with my eyebrows messed up. I think I somehow sleep on my face. I agree that a clean eyebrow can open up the face and I will be taking the good advice you all have offered. My brows also bleach in the summer so occasionally I’ll darken them and it makes such a difference!
I’m seriously considering getting my eye brows tatto0ed! They have all but fallen out and are not growing back. So sad!! I started using brown eye shadow on them last February when I finally started wearing face makeup. Bare Ecsentuals. I’ll be 56 next month. Eyebrowless!! :(
The only thing that has delayed my tattoo plan is … my hair is more white than not. I color it dark brown. My tiny little 90 year old mother has pure white hair and I keep picturing her in my mind with tattooed eyebrows. Scary. I may stay eyebrowless. ;D
Generally I’m a natural eyebrow kind of girl, but when I’m stressed I don’t sleep, and when I don’t sleep, I pluck. It’s bad news right now.
yes about age 48 they really slow down in growing back, speaking from experience.
now almost 50, when i go to an event I use a light powder to fill them in. really, it is ok. your eyesight also begins to get less precise as well, so really you don’t obsess about these things when they really happen. truthfully, a lot of freedom, arrives in a number of ways…not to worry: )
anyway….i plucked growing up.
threaded while we lived in india
now wax in indonesia
I love great brows, its my obesssion. The day before I had my son, I had to make sure I got my brows done. I wanted to make sure I looked great for all those photos
I tweeze with an occasional wax to keep my shape. During my last appointment, my hair dresser suggested that I dye my eyebrows a little darker. (I have blond hair and fairly light eyebrows.) I was a little hesitant, but decided to go for it. I was amazed at the difference it made! I will definitely be doing it again!
I do not want to believe that they stop growing… ;-)
Since we moved I thread my eyebrows myself. YouTube was a big help :-)
Mine are thick and curly and sometimes I just get sick of the waxing, and tweezing, and trimming, and try to ignore them…until my mom tells me something HAS to be done. I’m nearly thirty and I only see her a couple of times a year. It’s a problem.
Love this. I myself take my brows very seriously and even wrote a post about my brow lady here: http://www.alanabell.com/2011/03/eyebrow-whisperer.html
Good brows can change your face, your decade and your age!
I over-tweezed for years, until I saw a blog post similar to this one. Then I realized how funny my face looked with teeny lines above my eyes. It took 4 or 5 weeks to get them to fill back out, which took a lot of restraint especially since my husband has a fogless mirror in the shower.
I actually had multiple people tell me my eyebrows looked good after they grew back out. So now I just pluck stray hairs every once in a while. They’re pretty maintenance free now.
I stay natural. I don’t do a thing with my eyebrows even though, as a teenager, I bought a brush and eyeliner. Then, a few years later, I had someone who obsessed about eyebrows tell me that mine were perfect and not to do a thing to them. She knew all the eyebrow styles and was educated in stage and natural makeup.
So I haven’t.
I tweeze a little bit but not that much. I think it looks nicer to have a somewhat natural brow. Never tried the pencil and don’t think I would.
That trend sounds totally doable to me and I must say I adore that photo of Audrey :)
My brows unfortunately never recovered after over-plucking them in my mid-teens. I get the odd stray but they are fair and there is not enough to shape. I would love to have more.
I’ve always been told the stronger the brow, the more attention it draws to your eyes :)
We loved this post over at MarthaStewart.com so we decided to have a dermatologist answer your question about whether or not brows stop growing with age… My brows are thin enough as is!