If you rewind the clock a decade or so, you may have been able to get away with not bothering to draw your eyebrows in your daily makeup routine.

Unfortunately, eyebrows have made a huge comeback in the past few years. If you are in a rush, feel free to skip eyeliner, mascara, and eyeshadow, but never leave the house without drawing your brows.

Drawing eyebrows, however, can be pretty daunting for beginners. You want something full enough to give your face more character, but you don’t want to look like a cartoon character either.

Here’s where we step in (gently), and show you how to draw eyebrows easily, so you’ll be able to have brows on fleek all the time in 2024.

How to Draw Eyebrows: Before You Draw Them On

Step 1: Decide on the Eyebrow Shape You’d Like

This is the most important step and honestly, the most difficult step of all.

Picking the brow shape you want isn’t quite the same as picking out a favourite food. Instead of leaving it to preference, think of it as shopping for the perfect dress. Just like how your dress should flatter your body shape, the ideal brow shape for you would look good on your face shape.

Here’s a guide to picking your brow shape according to your face shape that we think you’d find extremely useful.

Step 2: Groom Your Brows

Thicker and more luxuriant brows may be in, but that doesn’t mean you should leave your brows growing willy-nilly.

It is way more difficult to see your brow shape and learn how to draw your eyebrows if you have hair growing all over the place. This is why grooming your brows comes before drawing in your brows – if your shape isn’t groomed, you’re not going to be able to fill them in properly.

If you’re not sure how to do it yourself, Daily Vanity strongly recommends that you get your brows shaped by a trained brow professional. Tweezing, threading, or waxing – it’s up to you!

Once you’ve got the basic shape nailed down by a professional, all you’ll need to do is to trim away the hairs that have grown out along the way to maintain your groomed brows.

Step 3: Make Sure Your Brow Product Is in the Right Shade

Most Asians have black hair, but that doesn’t mean that you should automatically go for black eyebrow shades.

Oftentimes, black shades can appear too harsh when you use them to fill your entire eyebrow. Even if you have properly mastered how to draw your eyebrows, jet black shades themselves may look too intense for your skin colour.

Instead, go for something that’s a shade lighter than your natural black hair, such as charcoal, ash-grey, dark grey, or even dark brown. Of course, pick something that’s still generally black-based so it still matches your hair.

If you have coloured hair, then you may have to start experimenting with your eyebrow colours. Blonde hair, for example, may even require you to bleach your eyebrows so that your eyebrows look more consistent with the hair on your head.

The general rule of thumb is to get a shade that somewhat matches at least the shade intensity of your hair, if not the actual colour.

Step 4: Create a Guide for Yourself

Free-handing your eyebrow can be pretty tricky and intimidating for beginners, so we do not recommend beginners try that, especially if you are rushing for time in the morning before work. Rather, in order to properly learn how to draw your eyebrows, start off with a rough shape guide.

Take note that this guide is only relevant to those who are intending to create an arched or curved eyebrow shape. If you’re going for a straight brow, this guide will not be applicable.

How to Create an Eyebrow Guide (for Arched and Curved Shapes):

Using a ruler, a string, any long, straight edge, use your nose to measure where the head of your brow should begin, where the arch should be, and where the tail of your brow should end.

With the ruler aligned vertically straight along the corner of your nose, mark out a straight line – this will be where the head of your brow should start.
Using the same ruler, align it with the corner of your nose and through the centre of your eye – this will mark the highest point of your eyebrow shape, or where the high point of your arch should be.
Lastly, measure from the corner of your nose and along the outer edge of your bottom eyelid. This marks where the tail of your eyebrow should be.
Make sure that the tail of your brow does not end higher than where the head of your brows begin, as this might make your eyes look droopy and lower.

You can draw a guide with straight-edged outlines along the shape of your brow, but take note this will make your brows look harsher, and should only be attempted if this is the look you prefer.

Otherwise, you can simply use dots at the more prominent points as a much rougher guide, leaving the edges of your brow to be more natural-looking.

How to Draw Eyebrows: A Step-by-Step Guide

Step 5: Start From the Centre

Most beginners, when learning how to draw their eyebrows for the first time, will usually start shading from the inner corner of their brows and move outwards from there.

This is actually not a good way of drawing your eyebrows, as it will instead give you a fiercer look and make your brows look more stilted.

If you are using an eyebrow palette with several different shades of brown, use the darkest colours at the centre of your brow, as that is generally where you will find the most hairs.

From the center moving towards the two outer edges of the brows, the shade should be getting lighter and lighter. The inner and outer edges of our brow is usually where your hairs naturally get thinner, so drawing your brows should attempt to replicate that.

If you are using an eyebrow pencil and don’t have a few shades to choose between, then practise lightening the shade by going with a softer touch. If needed, use a clean brush or spoolie to help with your blending

Step 6: Use Flicking Strokes

Instead of colouring in your brows, use short, flicking strokes with the brow product to replicate the natural look of individual hair strands in your brows.

Some brow guides even recommend that you use “featherlike strokes”, so you might need to have a bit of patience during this stage of learning how to draw your eyebrows.

Build the colour up slowly, rather than trying to get your desired darkness in as short a time as possible. Trust us, the result will be much more natural-looking.

Before you start filling in your brows, we also recommend that you brush your eyebrow hair downwards first with a spoolie so that you will have a clearer idea of where the bald spots and sparser areas are. Concentrate on those areas when you’re filling in your brows.

Step 7: Blend, Blend, Blend

We cannot emphasise blending enough for any principle of makeup application, not just those learning how to draw eyebrows.

You want to avoid having any harsh demarcating lines in your brow colour, so make sure that your blending game is strong – which will help with the rest of your makeup anyway.

You can use a spoolie to easily blend out the lines until you attain your preferred look.

Step 8: Practice Makes Perfect

Finally, remember that drawing your brows is one of the most challenging makeup techniques to pick up, and you may not get it right the first few times as a beginner. But the good news is that practice definitely makes perfect, so you should get better as you continue to do it – don’t give up!

Here’s a tip: draw your brows when you’re not in a hurry so you can dedicate more time to it. And if you’re really serious about perfecting the skill of drawing your brows, consider setting aside 30 minutes a day to do it, even if you’re not going anywhere. You’ll be able to master it and be familiar with creating a look that suits you in no time!

Video Tutorial: How to Draw Eyebrows at Home

We picked up so many tips from this video tutorial. We thought you’d find it useful too!

Images above taken from this video too.

You may also like these articles:

Beauty Tips, Makeup Beginner Guide

How to Draw Eyebrows: Guide for Beginners (2024 Asian Edition)

How to Draw Eyebrows: Before You Draw Them On