It wasn't until I came to Uni and stumbled upon the world of real makeup, beyond the Barry M Dazzle Dusts and Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse, that I realised that filling in your brows was a thing. Until then my brows had existed in undisturbed peace, occasionally plucked of rebellious strays, but never shaped or filled or groomed at all.
Two weeks in London, and I let my makeup artist flatmate pluck my brows into a much more organised state of affairs, and the next day I bought a Rimmel brow pencil that was far too dark and far too orange for my face. And so began my mission for good brows.
I missed out on all the youthful overplucking of brows, so mine are still pretty thick, thank god. But they're definitely not perfect. They're a little too short, the tail stops before it should, and they're a little wild up top above the arch, hard to keep under control and hard to match up there. But otherwise, they aren't half bad, they're thick and not too sparse either.
I finally invested in a pair of Tweezerman tweezers that year, that was pretty life changing. If you haven't tried them, open a new tab and purchase a pair now, you won't regret it. They make taming the bushy beasts much much easier.
Whilst I'm now a dab hand with my trusty Tweezermans, I still like to let the professionals have at them on the regular, to keep them looking tip top. I used to get them waxed, but I found that I wasn't getting the desired outcome, and 9/10 the skin around my brows would be irritated for a few days. Last summer I tried threading for the first time at Blink (you can read my full thoughts on the experience here) and since then I've been a convert. The effect threading has is astounding, my brows actually look thicker, and I happily skip filling them in regularly, because they look pretty damn good on their own now. I let the ladies at Blink take control now, and just pluck the odd stray in between sessions.
As far as filling them in goes, I have a whole heap of products I love these days. Currently in my rotation are five fantastic brow products that I am really happy with. My day to day go to is the Soap and Glory Archery Brow Pencil, easy to use and a good colour match for me, not as orange as my first foray into drugstore pencils. I was recently sent the pencil's little sister, the Archery DIY Brow Kit by Soap and Glory, and I've been giving that a whirl too - so far so good. For low maintenance brow days I go for the L'Oreal Brow Artist Plumper, which contains fibres that give a little extra definition to the brows. I keep the Blink Brow Gel on hand for days when I want my makeup to last all day, a swipe of this over my filler of choice does the trick. And lastly for real bold brow days, I'm all about the Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade, which really gives banging brow shape.
These days I prefer to keep things simple on the brow front. I went through a phase of obsessing over them, but like they say, sisters, not twins.
What's your approach to brow maintenance?
