Nail your lockdown beauty regime once and for all!
It seems beauty-conscious women cannot be seen out without the perfect brow. A little harder two lockdowns in and with access to beauty professionals having been limited in-between months. So, perhaps your brows are out of control, want to perfect your lockdown beauty regime, or you just want to keep them as neat as possible until you can next get to an appointment. Or perhaps you have been taking a more do-it-at-home attitude to your beauty regimes over recent months.
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Whatever your motivation, if you’re planning to do a DIY eyebrow tidy or want to nail the lockdown beauty regime, you want to do it right and ensure you get the perfect brow. Here are my top tips for getting flawless eyebrows in the comfort of your own home.
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Equipment:
Eyebrow pencils
Choose good quality but don’t be tempted to spend a fortune.
Tweezers
If your eyebrows are particularly thick, I suggest you use straight tip tweezers, as they give a good firm grip, allowing you to grab more hair and remove it faster. If you need precision plucking, have to hand some pointed tip tweezers. Stainless steel is a good material to choose as it’s hypoallergenic, so you should avoid skin irritation. Make sure all your tweezers are sharp – you’ll get a much better result, a lot more easily.
Eyebrow scissors
If you are planning to trim your eyebrows get scissors specifically designed for the job. They should be thin with sharp blades and, again, choose stainless steel if possible.
Eyebrow brush
If you don’t have one, a clean mascara brush or even a toothbrush can be used.
Preparation:
I would recommend you pluck your eyebrows after a bath or shower, so your pores are open and your skin softer. If you don’t have time, hold a warm, damp flannel to your brows for a couple of minutes to achieve a similar effect. Make sure you are relaxed and have everything you need to hand. It’s important not to rush this, so do it when you have plenty of time. Most importantly, ensure your mirror is completely clean and fit for the job and that you have good light – but avoid magnifying mirrors and very bright lighting as that can lead to over-plucking.
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Eyebrow shape:
In order to pluck your natural line, you need to determine the three vital points of your brows. Then you can pluck around these markers. These points are:
- Start – With your eyebrow pencil, hold it vertically against your ‘nasal wing’ (the fattest part of your nostril). Mark with your other pencil where it meets your eyebrow.
- Arch – this is the highest part of your eyebrow and can be determined by holding your pencil against your nasal wing again but this time at an angle so that it runs past the outer part of your pupil. Where this meets the eyebrow is your arch point. Again, this should be marked.
- End – With the pencil still on your nasal wing, turn it so it runs past the outward corner of your eye. Where it touches the brow, mark the end of your eyebrow.
Plucking:
Work from the inside, over to the outside then underneath i.e. first pluck the hairs between your eyebrows, then pluck the hairs above your arch, to properly define it. Next, take out any hairs that are on the outside of your end mark. When you have done this, pluck under your brow. This is where you can determine how thick or thin your brows are. Be really careful to keep the plucking underneath consistent in both eyebrows!
In fact, make sure you don’t do one eyebrow and then the other. Instead do a few hairs on one eyebrow and then even it up on the other side. Stop regularly and check that they are coming out even.
To make your plucking most efficient, stretch your skin tight and pluck from as close to the root as you can get. This makes it far less likely that you will break a hair and leave it too short to grab with your tweezers. Also, pull the hair in the direction it grows, to make it easier to pluck.
Stragglers
Once you have your shape, you may want to just tidy up long hairs that have a nasty habit of pointing out at odd angles. Take your brow brush and brush your hairs up, then very carefully use your eyebrow scissors to trim them to the right length.
Finishing up
It’s likely the skin around your eyebrows will be inflamed and sore once you have finished, so have a soothing cream to hand. You can buy cortisone cream in the chemist or try some pure aloe gel.
Once they have calmed down you can go the extra mile with a couple of finishing touches.
- If you still have errant hairs, use a specially-designed transparent gel to smooth them into place and keep them there.
- If you did over-pluck or have small gaps in your eyebrow, use your eyebrow pencil to gently draw some tiny lines to replace the errant hairs.
Caring for your Tweezers:
After a few times plucking your own brows, you’ll probably have got the hang of looking after them. However, don’t forget also to look after the tools of your trade, namely your tweezers.
Many people simply throw their tweezers back in their makeup bag when they have finished with them. The trouble with this is that they then come into contact with makeup residue, containing chemicals that really shouldn’t come into close contact with open follicles, as this can result in infection, which kind of defeats the object of plucking your brows to make you look more presentable!
The other thing that happens is that they are more likely to get the tips blunted and blunt tweezers are not effective. Blunt tweezers tend to bend and break hairs or simply not work at all.
So, when you have finished perfecting your brows, wipe your tweezers clean and store them either in a special storage pouch or point-up in a pot or other receptacle. If your Tweezers came with those little plastic covers on the tips, keep hold of them and replace them after each use to protect them from dust, etc.
How To Protect Your Tweezers For Good!
However well you look after them, they will blunt eventually and what do you do then? Well, most people simply throw them away and get a new pair. This is fair enough in a way, but it is a costly exercise and, as most of us are attempting to move away from a throwaway society, it seems somewhat un-planet-friendly!
There are sharpening services you can use but these can be relatively expensive in comparison to the unit price of the tweezers themselves, not to mention there is still an environmental cost, albeit comparatively small. Worst of all, you have the inconvenience of sending them away and then waiting for them to be returned before you can get on with your brow maintenance. Alternatively, look for a Tweezer file designed specifically for tweezers that is easy-to-use and will ensure your tweezers are always in tip top condition and will last and last!
Concluding Thoughts
I hope you’ve found these tips useful and that you can enjoy nice trim brows, whether this is a change for good or just until your favourite beautician is able safely to reopen their doors! However good your lockdown beauty DIY job, I suspect you may be glad to let them work their magic again when the time comes – never be afraid of lockdown beauty again!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lucy Zender is the creator and founder of Tweezerfile, an award-winning and innovative new beauty product that allows you to sharpen your old blunt tweezers and bring them back to life. Hold your tweezers with the blades together, then slide the tweezer up and down the Tweezerfile, gently applying equal pressure on the top and bottom blade. After a few strokes, your tweezers will be back to their old glory, gripping even the shortest hair! Available in two beautiful colours, coral and petrol blue. Available via Tweezerfile.com and from Amazon.
Instagram: https://instagram.com/tweezerfile/
Beauty Awards:
The Beauty Awards 2019 – Highly Commended
Global Makeup Awards 2019 – Silver
Pure Beauty Awards London 2019 – Bronze
How have you perfected your lockdown beauty regime?
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