Raelle Levicke, resident eyebrow guru at About Face Skin Care, spends a lot of her days tending to some of your face’s most important accessories. Read on to find out how to keep your brows perfect, why they have such an impact on your look, and how to find the best shape for your individual face and style.
Raising the bar for brows
Although eyebrows have always had the power to make a huge difference in the way a person looks, they have only recently come to the forefront of people?s attention thanks to ?it? girls like Cara Delevigne and Lily Collins.
At the moment, the eyebrow trend is leaning towards ?bigger is better?, but regardless of fashion’s influence on brow thickness, length or color, there are some standard eyebrow rules that never change.
How do you know the right shape eyebrow for your face?
Several things are taken into consideration when determining the best shape for your eyebrows. The shape of your face plays the most important role. (See picture A.) Here are some pointers:
?
- Heart-Shaped Faces
A heart-shaped face looks best with a soft arch, which balances a longer chin. When it comes to thickness, a fuller shape is usually more flattering.
- Square-Shaped Faces
A high, curved arch works well on a square shape, since it softens and elongates your face
- Long Faces
The best way to flatter a long face is with a straighter brow and a gentle arch, which helps widen your face. (Avoid high arches, which will make your face appear thinner.)
- Round Faces
Fuller brows with a sharp, angled arch gives structure to a round face. (The farther from your nose the arch is, the wider your face will appear.)
- Oval-Shaped Faces
Lucky you! Those with an oval face shape can pull off almost any brow shape; however a full, softly angled brow is always flattering.
- Diamond-Shaped Faces
Try a curved brow with an angled arch, this helps to lengthen the widest part of a diamond-shaped face.
Eyebrow Geometry
Once the face shape is taken into account, there is a general template for eyebrow geometry that I follow to insure that the proper proportions are attained per face.
Using your eye and nose as landmarks, each eyebrow should start at the point where your nose ends. The highest part of the eyebrow?s arch should line-up with the outer-edge of the iris, and if there was a line that extended across your face from the edge of your nostril to the outer-corner of your eye ? that?s where the eyebrow should end.
–> Check out examples of Raelle’s approved eyebrow shapes and styles here.?
Do you think waxing is better than plucking?
After decades of working with countless brows, I have come to learn that a combination of waxing and plucking allows me to get the best results.
Wax is great for obtaining the general shape of the eyebrow with nice, clean lines. Once the base shape is set, I then like to go back in with the tweezers to perfect and fine-tune any areas that need further finessing.
Do you have any tips for people who’d like to wax or pluck their own eyebrows at home?
As a professional plucker, I can empathize better than anyone about just how tempting it can be to take the tweezers into your own hands.
However, aside from basic clean-up (like plucking the stray hairs that pop up in the very middle of your brows or are clearly far away from your true arch) if having great eyebrows is important to you, it is best to leave the real shaping to the professionals.
It is so easy to accidentally go over-board, and then you?re back in my chair anyway to correct the error while also scouring the aisles of Sephora for a good eyebrow-pencil to camouflage the mistake??
Once you?re finished with removing the strays, use your will-power to put the tweezers down. It might not seem like a lot, but trust me — a few hairs here or there can really make a big difference.
And, not that you would ever take it upon yourself to create something as dramatic as this Nike-selfie-lover (just DON’T, girl!), it can definitely be helpful to have a professional help you create the most flattering shape for your specific face. It is easier for someone other than yourself to take a step back and crtitique the overall appearance, and to keep any pluck-happy tendencies in check. Additionally, someone other than yourself can take into account what you look like from all angles, and truly take control of your entire brow maintenance.?
–> Check out examples of Raelle’s eyebrow “don’ts” here.
What type of wax do you use and why?
At About Face we use NuFree.?
NuFree wax is used the same way as any other wax, however it is formulated in a way that makes it superior to the rest of the waxes on the market. Made with soy, NuFree wax only adheres to hair — which means your skin is never affected during the waxing process.
Because NuFree doesn?t grab onto the skin, studies actually show that Nufree waxing is 75% less painful than regular waxing!
Do you know any special tricks for reducing redness from waxing?
I swear by Finipil. An FDA-approved cream that cools, soothes, and kills 99.999% of any bacteria (key when dealing with small openings in the skin where the hair follicles used to be), Finipil is a delicious-feeling product that calms and protects.
?
?
?