Please critique my eye and advise on brows!

[ElvenEyes]

I am ready to unfold my pathetic eyebrows to the forum. And I am just getting back into makeup, so here is my eye of the day. Please critique, it is the only way I will learn and I can take it. My brows are a mess, too. Do I pluck from underneath to get a nice shape? Then what do I do for uneven brows and lengthening them just slightly. Product recommend?

I put Mac Shroom all the way from lid to brow, Pink Venus across lid, then Creme de Violet in the corners. I love the colour mix. For liner under my eyes I used NYX Purple and Lavender Jumbo pencils, mixing them towards the outside to blend them, and finished it off with some Cover Girl brown-black mascara. I wanted something flirty, feminine and pink! I do think I should have used a black volumizing mascara instead. My brows are pathetic. Light brown (I am a NW15 with olive green eyes and medium brown hair). My brows are lighter than my hair. Almost a blondish brown. Help, advise, please!! I forgot to use my UB primer, which usually evens everything out better, too. Drats...

Before I watched a tutorial, went out, got scissors, brush, tweezers, mirror, liner...



After I clipped, tweezed, lined my brows, though the brow liner is too light. Must find something darker, but not too dark. Live and learn, right? Sigh... Better??

 

[Curly1908]

I think you should let your brows grow back and then get them threaded by a professional. I can almost always tell when people do their brows themselves -- and not in a good way (usually uneven, too thin, and abnormally shaped).

I'd also suggest you invest in brow POWDER instead of a liner. It's much more natural looking. HTH!

 

[kiky]

I think your brow looks nice after. You should post both brows for a comparison though. It's really hard to critique only seeing one brow.

 

[ElvenEyes]

I think you should let your brows grow back and then get them threaded by a professional. I can almost always tell when people do their brows themselves -- and not in a good way (usually uneven, too thin, and abnormally shaped).

I'd also suggest you invest in brow POWDER instead of a liner. It's much more natural looking. HTH!

I think I should have left some of it back, but it will grow back soon enough! The thing is with my brows (my mother and sister have the same problem) is that they are sort of bushy or messy at the beginning and then have splotches where no hair grows and they thin out and are short. Very short. I remember my mother wearing eyebrow liner all the time but never shaping her brows. It looked horrible and the colour didn't match. She was using brown, but her hair and brows were pure black. I just found a nice light brown pencil by Revlon that matches much nicer and another by Loreal that also looks more natural, but will try your suggestion about using a powder. Where can I find brow powder? Please suggest some brands for me! Thank you for the advice! I appreciate it!

 

[Curly1908]

For sure! I have fine eyebrows so I share some of your pain. The best brow powders that I know of are:

Benefit Brow Zings
Shiseido

Another alternative is to just use a matte eyeshadow to fill in your brows. I'm not sure what color would best suit you though as the shade I use would be too dark for ya.

Quote:

I think I should have left some of it back, but it will grow back soon enough! The thing is with my brows (my mother and sister have the same problem) is that they are sort of bushy or messy at the beginning and then have splotches where no hair grows and they thin out and are short. Very short. I remember my mother wearing eyebrow liner all the time but never shaping her brows. It looked horrible and the colour didn't match. She was using brown, but her hair and brows were pure black. I just found a nice light brown pencil by Revlon that matches much nicer and another by Loreal that also looks more natural, but will try your suggestion about using a powder. Where can I find brow powder? Please suggest some brands for me! Thank you for the advice! I appreciate it!

 

[ElvenEyes]

Well, I have a bunch of MAC browns, so I can try a myriad of those first! And I love Benefits, so that is a good possibility! What about Anastasia by Sephora? I was just looking at all those eyebrow items and they have some possible browns that might work for me. What about lengthening my eyebrow line. The powder would look good filling the brows in, but can I use it to lengthen them?

 

[elegant-one]

You have such gorgeous eyelashes!!!

Anastasia has wonderful see thru brow templates as well as fillers & highlighters. A template would be great to have so you could follow the same shape every time giving you consistency. I would suggest allowing the hair to grow more towards the inner nose line so that it continues just past your inner eye corner & just a bit longer on the outer end - it will make your eyes be framed better.

 

[ElvenEyes]

You have such gorgeous eyelashes!!!

Anastasia has wonderful see thru brow templates as well as fillers & highlighters. A template would be great to have so you could follow the same shape every time giving you consistency. I would suggest allowing the hair to grow more towards the inner nose line so that it continues just past your inner eye corner & just a bit longer on the outer end - it will make your eyes be framed better.

Thank you! In order to appreciate them I have to put mascara on them, as they are brown at the beginning but pale blonde on the latter half, so they disappear. Then I have to be careful with mascara on the lower lashes (I skip that a lot or just do the outer corner with a quick sweep) because I can look like a clown. I needed that compliment! xo As for growing my brows more towards the nose and more towards the end, that is one of my biggest problems. They don't grow there. lol Seriously, they never have. Short, stubby brows is what I have. Nothing pretty except maybe a bit of a rounded arch. I did not pluck anything from the beginning part. Needless to say the unibrow was never a problem for me. I wish my brows were longer and thicker so I had something to work with!

 

[marajode]

I think you sound like you're too hard on yourself. I think you did a good job myself.
I am by NO means a brow expert, so I'm watching this thread to learn as well.
I have the Anastasia set with the clear templates, 2 powders, wax and a highlight.
I only use the 2 powders though. I've tried the templates, but I am doing something wrong. I think maybe my eyes are too small or something.

I have wanted to have my brows threaded. I'm kind of embarassed to say I've never had my brows done professionally ever. I don't know how you pick out where to go or which person. I'm paranoid of leaving with one hair per eye or something.

I agree with extending a little farther on each side like Elegant said.

 

[Honey&LemonGirl]

I think you did a great job! The shape you made looks like it fits nicely with your browbone structure. I agree with elegant, extending them just a bit on either end would be perfect. For the color, maybe something ashier? The color was really the hardest part for me though. My eyebrow hairs are pitch black, and my brow powder of choice (after TONS of searching and experimenting) is MAC's eyeshadow in Coquette, which is an almost greenish, light grey color. (Which is just to say that the color that looks natural on your brows is often some odd color that doesn't look anything like your eyebrow hairs.)

 

[ElvenEyes]

Thank you for all the compliments, tips and advice! I will keep looking for just the right colour in both a pencil and a powder, buy a brush to apply and smooth it out to make it look more natural, see what I can do with it to fill the beginning and end of my brows where they don't grow (!!) and maybe even ask a pro MAC person to help me next time I am in the store. At least right now they look neater and more formed. I am looking through magazines and everyone on tv to see what their eyebrows look like! lol

 

[Babylard]

I think the shape of your brow is just fine. Even if we go to a professional, they can't do anything about unevenness and bald spots. the tail of your brow pulls very warm while your natural hair color looks more cooler toned. I would try taupe and ashier colored powders and pencils.

 

[ElvenEyes]

I think the shape of your brow is just fine. Even if we go to a professional, they can't do anything about unevenness and bald spots. the tail of your brow pulls very warm while your natural hair color looks more cooler toned. I would try taupe and ashier colored powders and pencils.

Thank you! I will look into Ashier colours or something with a taupe tinge to it. That makes sense because taupe has always looked very nice and natural on my lids as opposed to some golden browns, which seems to be what most of the pencil colours lean towards! Thanks!

 

[myluckypenny]

Use ashier colored brow powders - I use eyeshadows from MAC because they're readily available to me. A good brow color is Espresso e/s. Also, if you have really sparse eyebrows, and you want better staying power, use MUFE brow correctors. They're pretty awesome when you have a few boo-boos to hide and it works well w/ an angled brush.

 

[LC]

definitely looks much better. I'd personally bring them in closer to one another slightly. As for brow fill-in color, it's safe to go with a color a shade or two lighter than your natural hair color.

I also agree about using a powder rather than a brow pencil or other product. Many times lines actually use the same formula for their brow powders as eyeshadows as a way to get you to buy more, so using a matte eyeshadow works just fine, usually the eyeshadows are cheaper anyway Just by looking on the pic, I think MAC's "Omega" eyeshadow would be a great match for you. If you wanted to go with something darker, you could either wet your brush before using the Omega eyeshadow, or you could go with their shadow called "wedge"

 

[summerblue]

I think you did a nice 'after' job, however, you may want to let them grow back & get them professionally waxed. If you like the shape the gal gave you, great, you can keep them up by plucking. If not, then, keep going to other salons until you are satisfied with the shape. Anyway, I use a 2 step process for coloring: 1) Shu Uemura has a good eyebrow gel; the best out there IMO. They make a blonde. It's great for drawing in missing eyebrow tails as I have the same prob. as you, 2) I then go over the gel with a powder. I love Clinique's brow shaper powder compact. I've been using it for like 20+ years. Wheat would be a good color for you. Even just a powder by itself would be fine. You may want to buy a clear wax like Smashbox to set the brow or a mascara type gel. Go to Sephora.com & read the reviews on various eyebrow products. If you have a Sephora by you, you can try the products before you buy.

Here's the link for the powder I use (be sure to read the 4.8 star reviews on the bottom of the page):

http://www.clinique.com/product/CATEGORY4895/PROD679/Makeup/Brows/index.tmpl

And here's the link for the gel (the blonde currently isn't in stock):

http://www.shuuemura-usa.com/_us/_en/makeup/brows/eyebrow-gel.htm:

 

[AiriMagdalene]

No one seemed to focus on your eye, but everyone pretty much established the brows.
Now, I don't want to give a negative impression, but you shouldn't use a lot of shimmery shadows because of the texture of your skin. It tends to age the eyes. Try to stick to matte variants of the same colors, and reserve shimmer colours for just your inner corners and use them lightly over a matte as a brow highlight. Pay some special attention to your crease to define the shape with a darker shadow, but in a soft way. Overall, it sounds like you do in fact have the right idea. I'm sure with some practice, you'll definitely get there.
As far as the brow debate goes, pencil versus powder, my answer to that is both.
Because of the way your eyebrows grow in [mine used to grow in the same way before I started removing them completely so I could have some versatility for my youtube channel] the best advice I can give you is to use a pencil that you could round up to be about two shades darker than the one that you have now, draw a straight line with it at the beginning of your brow, and draw the top part of that vertical line slightly into your brow, then use an angled liner [if you don't have one, the ecotools one is entirely affordable and my favourite EVER, and you can get them at drug stores] to pull the pencil through your brow. This is going to make it show up slightly lighter and thusly match you perfectly. Then, set it with a neutral medium brown powder with the same brush. I know it sounds like a lot of work for just brows, but they'll come out looking professionally done, and no doubt last all day.