Getting beautiful brows has become one of the biggest beauty challenges, alongside obtaining clear, blemish-free skin. We all know that we can’t do without our eyebrows, yet making sure that they look good on our face is such a challenge that some of us resort to brow embroidery instead.
Whether you are a total beginner to drawing eyebrows or an experienced beauty junkie who has been fervently trying to up your brow game, you’re almost certainly guilty of making mistakes when it comes to your brows.
Don’t believe us? We got Rochelle Paz, National Brow Artist of Benefit Cosmetics, to share some of the most common brow mistakes that she has seen while working on consumers’ brows at Benefit Brow Bar!
Common brow mistakes
Having full-coloured brows that are not blended properly
If you think that a uniformly-coloured eyebrow is the way to go, think again.
Rochelle’s take on brows that are bold from start to end is that you just end up looking very angry, and also not in the slight bit natural, which is not exactly the kind of look that most of us are going for!
She also shared that some women draw their eyebrows quite close to each other to create the illusion of a slimmer nose – this is perfectly fine, but you have to make sure that the front ends are not too harsh because it also makes the ends look less outstanding.
Tip: Always draw less brow in the front for a softer look, and work on the ends more. Instead of uniformly drawing strokes all over your brows, Rochelle suggests looking at a mirror to analyse your brows, see where they are the most sparse, and focus on them instead. You can also do brow mapping to get a gauge of where your brows should start and end.
Light brows =/= natural brows
One of the most common requests that customers are asking for these days is ‘natural brows’. However, they also come with a misconception that lighter brows equate to a more natural look.
Although lighter-coloured brows may look softer on the face, Rochelle clarifies that it does not look natural on most Asians. Most of us are born with black or dark brown brow hairs, and using a light brown pencil just emphasises the contrast rather than blend in ‘naturally’.
Tip: Rochelle’s advice is to always go for the closest shade to your original brow colour because that is natural.
You can take a leaf out of Pony’s book – the makeup guru herself always makes sure that her brows are never too lightly-coloured, yet manages to pull off the natural brows that many of us yearn for.
If you really want lighter-coloured brows, you are recommended to go only one shade lighter. For example, if you have black brow hairs, you may not necessarily want a black brow that looks too block-like and drawn on – opt for a cooler medium-toned brown instead.
You can’t have brows as straight as your favourite K-celebs
One of Rochelle’s biggest frustrations is having to explain to multiple customers that they can’t all have straight brows, which became a trademark of K-beauty since some time ago.
She explains that many customers come to her with photos of Korean celebrities and saying that they want the same straight brows even though they naturally have very arched brows, making it an impossible goal to try and achieve. Some people even shave off their eyebrows and their arches in order to get straight brows!
The problem with straight brows is that while you tend to look younger, you also run the risk of looking emotionless.
Another aspect that customers tend to forget is their face shape – Rochelle explains that if you draw super straight brows on round faces or square faces, it will not look very flattering, hence not everyone is suited for straight brows.
Tip: Don’t despair yet! Rochelle believes that all of us can rock straight brows, but the key is that you have to get straight brows that are customised to your face shape and original brow shape. It will not be as straight or super straight as the brows on the celebrities, but you will still see that it’s a straight line.
Korean actress Bae Suzy is a good example – she used to sport straight brows but these days she has started flaunting brows that are more naturally curved to flatter her rounder face shape. They still look straight with barely an arch, and work much better to frame her face!
Over-tweezing and over-plucking your original brows
How common is this mistake? As Rochelle would have you know, this is also the biggest mistake that she did to herself in the past!
Thankfully, she says that this over-tweezing of eyebrows has become less common these days, which could be attributed to the popularity of thick brows that are popular on Instagram. However, it was a very common mistake among girls in the 1990s, where everyone was trying to achieve thin brows.
There still are people who are guilty of over-plucking in a zealous attempt to get perfectly-shaped brows, as thin brows can be easier to define than thick and bushy ones. However, take note that you are also making it difficult for yourself to get a natural-looking result when you have to resort to using a lot more brow product to get decently-volumed eyebrows.
Tip: It’s fine to pluck the occasional stray hairs, but if you are tempted to tweeze your arches and pluck your brow hairs until you are left with only one thin line, drop the tweezers!
P.S. You may also be interested to know that the hottest brow trend coming up doesn’t require you to tweeze or pluck those stray hairs – read on to find out why!
Upcoming brow trends
Straight eyebrows and Instagram brows have been a mainstay in the beauty world for quite a few years now; it probably isn’t surprising that it’s about time that a new brow trend has emerged.
For those of you who are born with naturally thicker brows, you’ll be happy to know that it’s your time to shine, because bushy and fluffy eyebrows are now the hottest eyebrow trend!
Rochelle shares that she has been getting more requests at the Benefit Brow Bar for fluffy and natural-looking eyebrows. This is a huge contrast to the previous trend of perfectly-concealed and powdered Instagram brows, where less product is used so it looks natural, and even makes people look younger!
Bushy eyebrows can first be traced back to this year’s fashion runway, where models were sported with thick and bushy brows. It started with Cara Delevinge sporting the look on the runway, and then more models being cast for their bushy brows.
The effortless look soon caught up with beauty brands and beauty gurus, and is slated to be the next brow trend that won’t go away anytime soon.
Besides sporting bold and bushy eyebrows, another feature of this trend is that small excess hair is actually welcome, and even desired!
Rochelle’s explanation is that the whole point of this brow trend is to make you look younger, and young brows are not waxed (we can safely assume that most of us did not go for brow waxing in our early teens).
That being said, it doesn’t mean you should totally forego brow waxing and let your stray hair run amok. The aim is to keep your overall brow look clean, just with some excess hair to make it look effortless.
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For those of us who are still big fans of Instagram brows and straight brows, you may be a little concerned about where this trend will take you – after all, you may have even shaved off your original brows in order to get slick and straight brows, leaving you with barely any real brow hairs to rock authentic bushy brows.
We asked Rochelle for her take on this, and here’s some good news for you: it’s unlikely that Instagram brows are going to fade out completely, unlike the yester-years of thin, tadpole brows. She is personally a big fan of the perfectly-concealed brow look, and she is certain that there will still be many people who will keep it going.
Straight brows, however, are a different story. While everyone seemed to want straight brows last year, the demand for it has been going down – possibly because people start to realise that it does not suit everyone, nor is everyone suited to sport super straight brows.
They have instead been asking for ‘natural brows’, which naturally (no pun intended) leads to the rise of bushy eyebrows.
