Grooming your eyebrows to look their absolute best is currently the biggest beauty trend. Makeup artists have started to stress the importance of full and perfectly shaped brows, which makes sense, considering eyebrows frame the face and can completely alter your look.
While some choose to go with that all-natural, unaltered look, others' natural brows make that an impossible choice — not all of us are born with flawlessly shaped brows!
If you weren’t born with the skills of an eyebrow expert, figuring out how to shape them can be a bit of a struggle. The idea of incorrectly tweezing, cutting, and defining your brows may prevent you from trying to groom them at all. Thankfully, you're not alone and we're here to help!
Below you’ll find a complete guide to determining your brow type and how to shape them to flatter your face. After all, not everyone's eyebrows are the same. In fact, each eyebrow is never an exact duplicate of the other. If you've also been curious how to achieve a new eyebrow look, we also have step-by-step styling advice. Follow them below and keep practicing to get the perfect brows for your face!
Types Of Eyebrows: Natural Shapes
There are a variety of different natural eyebrow shapes. Before learning how to groom yours, it is important to understand your own brow shape.
1. No Eyebrows: This is often the result of light, patchy, or overly tweezed eyebrows. The hair is not very visible or there may not be any at all in certain areas.
2. Bushy Eyebrows: Bushy eyebrows are very thick, with a high hair density. These brows often grow in quickly, with coarse, dense hair.
3. Thin Eyebrows: Thin eyebrows are sparse and do not grow as easily or quickly. They can be naturally delicate or the result of over plucking.
4. Round Eyebrows: Round eyebrows look like a semi-circle and are often the result of improper tweezing. They may occur when attempting to create arched eyebrows. Instead of tweezing hairs underneath the arch, the hairs around the arch get removed, which creates the rounded off shape.
Now that you've determined your natural shape, below are the most flattering and popular types of eyebrows to consider when you're getting ready to groom yours.
Popular Types Of Eyebrows: Groomed Shapes 1. Thick Eyebrows
Bold from beginning to end, thick eyebrows are the result of plucking only unruly hairs that don’t add to the shape. This shape is very dense and dramatic. These are perfect for individuals looking to garner attention and can work with almost any face shape. They've also become particularly covetable as of late — Marie Claire recommends vaseline and coconut oil if you're trying to get thicker brows.
2. Straight Eyebrows
Straight eyebrows can be either thin or bushy. However, the shape often extends straight across the brow bone without a highly defined arch. Beautylish.com advises that this look can lend to a more youthful appearance, especially if you have a round or oval face shape.
3. Arched Eyebrows
Once again, you’ll find both thin or bushy versions of arched brows. With this shape, the arch is highly defined and extends upward. Professionals like NYC and L.A. eyebrow stylist Jimena Garcia have often dubbed these brows the “black dress” of all eyebrow looks. Heart shaped and square faces will find that this eyebrow shape flatters them the most.
How To Shape Your Eyebrows
Eyebrow shaping requires guidance, practice, and all of the proper tools. In order to learn how to shape your brows, you’ll need to have a few of the following products listed below. With the right tools handy, you can then get to work grooming.
Beauty Products You’ll Need
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Professional Tweezers: These come in a set of 4 so you can keep a pair handy in your purse, your bathroom, and anywhere else you may need one.
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Eyebrow Scissors and Brush: Will come in handy when trimming any particularly long brow hairs.
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An Eyebrow Pencil: Great basic tool for everyone — just make sure you pick the right brow pencil color.
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Eyebrow Gel: The ideal low-effort, high-pay-off brow tool.
5. Highlighter: Accentuate your arch and cover up any minor imperfections with a highlighter.
- Eyebrow Stencils: The perfect tool for simple, everyday eyebrow contouring.
How To Shape: Thick Eyebrows
1. Begin by brushing your eyebrow hairs upward with the eyebrow brush. This will help you determine which areas will need to be filled in.
2. Individuals with bushy eyebrows will want to pluck any hairs that don't add to the shape. Those with sparse or no eyebrows should allow their eyebrows to grow for as long as possible beforehand.
3. Taking your eyebrow pencil, mark off the beginning, end, and middle of your eyebrow. You can use the eyebrow pencil to determine this by placing it against the bridge of your nose, your arch, and from the corner of your eye toward your eyebrow.
4. Begin filling in your eyebrows with the eyebrow pencil, adding extra emphasis to the arch for a thicker appearance. For sparse or round eyebrows, you’ll want to create the illusion of hairs by pressing lightly onto the brow bone from the front, in upward and sideway motions.
5. Set your eyebrows with the eyebrow gel to keep them in place all day.
How To Shape: Straight Eyebrows
1. To begin shaping straight eyebrows, the first step is to tweeze any eyebrow hairs that give you an excessive arch. This is especially important for individuals with bushy and rounded eyebrows. Start by plucking hairs near your arch that are facing downward. However, avoid over plucking as you still need length for the look. It's difficult to notice over-plucking up close, so take a step back every once in a while to see the big picture of your brows.
2. Take your eyebrow brush and brush your eyebrow hairs downward. Then, taking the eyebrow scissors, cut off any hairs that reach down past your natural brow shape.
3. Fill in your eyebrows with an eyebrow pencil by starting from your inner corner and working your way outward. You can use anything with a straight edge such as the eyebrow stencil to avoid arching the brows too much as you fill them in.
4. Set your eyebrows with eyebrow gel to keep them in place.
How To Shape: Arched Eyebrows
1. Begin by using the eyebrow brush to bring all of your hairs upward. For individuals with bushy eyebrows, grab the eyebrow scissors and simply trim off the ends of the long hairs. This will help you to better determine where your eyebrow arch is.
2. With the tweezers, start plucking any stray hairs that are visible in between your eyes making sure not to pass the start of your eyebrows. To determine where that area should be, simply place a straight pencil vertically against the bridge of your nose and rest it on your eyebrow bone.
3. Take note of where the highest point of your eyebrows is and mark it off with your eyebrow pencil. Those with no eyebrows or thin eyebrows will want to take the eyebrow pencil and place it from the corner of the nose and up through the middle of the eye. This is where your arch should be.
4. Those with bushy eyebrows should begin tweezing hairs from the bottom, removing up to one row in order to angle up in the direction of the arch. If you're still having trouble shaping, you can pick up an eyebrow stencil with your preferred arch and fill in the area with an eyebrow pencil.
5. Take the highlighter pencil and begin to lightly trace the bottom half of your completed eyebrows for an even more defined arch.
6. Finally, set your eyebrows with the eyebrow gel to keep them in place throughout the day.
If you plan on trying out this eyebrow tutorial on your own eyebrows, make sure to SHARE this with anyone else who could use a few of these tips to look their absolute best!
