When eyebrows became the thing to obsess about beauty-wise around a year or so ago, I was the first person to roll my eyes. I've never had what you'd call a great relationship with my eyebrows. In fact, they've probably caused me more distress than the average person's brows.
Growing up, I always thought my eyebrows were too thick. But what I didn't realize when I was younger was that even though the eyebrows themselves felt bushy, the hairs that constituted them were ultra-fine — so fine, you might assume I didn't have any eyebrows at all if you looked at me from the wrong angle.
Fast forward a few years, when I discovered my hatred for getting my eyebrows done by a professional. Whenever I lay down on a spa bed to get my brows waxed or threaded, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Moreover, the process would make my skin so irritated that every time I left a salon, I looked as if I'd lost a fight. (Technicians have given me all sorts of reasons as to why this happens, but I've never pinned down an exact cause.)
I wound up toughing out waxing and threading for several years, putting myself (and my skin) through agony every other week in an attempt to tame my brows. Eventually, I demoted both practices to as-necessary treatments, never subjecting myself to them unless I was going to a special occasion. It was only last year that I finally gave them both up altogether in favor of just plucking my brows in the privacy of my own bathroom.
I wouldn't say my brows are "on fleek" by any means nowadays, but they look fine to me — just fine. I'll admit that I've tried a few different eyebrow-taming and shaping treatments since it became trendy, but I've never been completely satisfied with any one method.
You can imagine my excitement, then, when I heard about eyebrow extensions a few weeks ago.
Here's what my face looks like when it's overlaid with a Snapchat filter.
As you can see, any filters/halfway-decent lighting render me browless.
Eyebrow extensions initially seemed like a strange solution to my brow woes.
I was a little skeptical when first I learned that eyebrow extensions were a thing. I watched a few videos of people getting them, and it looked like a goopy process. I was also slightly concerned that they might actually rip off my existing eyebrows, which would be less than ideal, to say the least.
I settled on Join2Top's eyebrow extensions.
(They're available on Amazon for $21.99 and come in two colors: brown and black. I went with the latter even though I have dark brown hair; the "brown" just looked to be too auburn-y.)
My first impression was that they were definitely well-packaged. The jar of extensions themselves was snuggled in a pouch that arrived in a silver box.
The brush you use to apply the extensions was a little shorter than I thought it would be, but when you see how fine the "eyebrow" fibers are, its petite size makes sense: You need a small, precise tool to get the little suckers on correctly.
Here's what the "eyebrows" looked like.
The solution is a combination of gel and fibers. The instructions on the box recommend that you use the included brush to mix the solution before each use, so I did just that.
The first application was surprisingly easy.
I like to keep my makeup looking fairly natural, so I didn't apply too much at first. I thought my eyebrows looked nice at first go, defined without being overwhelming.
I then approached my boyfriend, eyebrows waggling.
He asked me why I was making faces at him. I asked him if my eyebrows looked different, to which he replied, "Kind of, but not really."
Clearly, there was more thickening to do.
My eyebrows hadn't moved a bit when I gave them a close look at the end of the day.
I was super impressed, especially considering that it was 90 degrees outside that day. My eyebrows still looked nice and groomed, despite the rest of my face having had enough of the heat.
The real test would be washing them off.
And I'm happy to report that it was easy peasy. I used a water-based cleanser, and everything came off right away.
I decided to give the eyebrow extensions another shot the next day — this time with more product.
Brow-Filling Attempt No. 2
I applied the eyebrow extensions just before going out to dinner with some of my friends, figuring that they'd be the perfect test audience.
My fuller brows took me less than five minutes to apply, and by the time I'd finished, I was FEELING MYSELF.
My friends spotted a difference immediately: "Did you tattoo your eyebrows?" they asked. "Was it microblading?"
I whipped out my nifty little bottle of fibers to pass around, and they were impressed. "They look so neat," one friend remarked.
At the end of that second day, the eyebrows started getting a little itchy — understandable, considering I had been wearing them for more than eight hours at that point. So with a simple swipe of a makeup-removing wipe, off they came.
Just for fun, I decided to apply as many of those bad boys as I could.
I paused after one eyebrow to take a picture that compared the "before" and "after" brows. (The brow on the right is the one with the extensions, in case you can't tell. I have definition, dolls, and I'm obsessed!)
I decided to take a picture of my face with the same Snapchat filter that usually washes out my eyebrows entirely.
Well, would you look at that? On fleek, I say!
After my experiment, I did some more research into eyebrow extensions to see if other people who tried them ran into any issues. Some found the individual fibers hard to maneuver, a problem that I had avoided by arming myself with an eyebrow brush. Brushing on the fiber-y solution and then brushing my brows — always in the same direction both times — seemed to do the trick.
A few other people complained that while the solution did work, it left their brows a little shiny. Dusting the tiniest bit of brow powder over my brows after the solution dried seemed to solve this problem for me.
I feel like a whole new world of possibilities is open to me now that I've tried eyebrow extensions, though I'll probably save them for special occasions rather than incorporate them into my daily beauty routine. (I work from home, so going doing a full face of makeup is virtually pointless most days.) If you have a few minutes, a brow brush, and some patience, I highly recommend giving these extensions a shot.
