The Brow Story

 

My eyebrows are what I like to call 'my facial nemesis'. Up until around a year ago I absolutely detested them to the point where I would often find myself wanting to weep with envy whenever I saw a female with her brows perfectly full and shaped. Having been *ahem* 'blessed' with my Dad's brow genetics, they're naturally very sparse and thin, and without any plucking, have next to no shape at all - I quite literally find the odd one or two trying to escape to the mainland (my forehead) sometimes. I'd lived with this issue for around 15 years before I decided I'd had enough. I went to Boots, came out with (amongst other things) the tools I needed and set off on what I'm deeming today to be 'My Brow Journey'...

As I previously said, my natural brows aren't exactly anything to get excited about. I knew firstly that two things had to be done if anything was to be salvaged from them. The tweezers came out. Now, unlike some 'First Time Tweezer Tales' you've probably heard where all but one hair is pulled out, as I had basically just a mass of growth instead of a brow, it was actually in this case necessary for me to get a little tweezer-happy. I started off by Googling 'how do I shape my eyebrows?' and at the top of the other 1983464 results was an article showing how to basically transform your brows into a chiselled work of art on your face. I followed this attentively and before I knew it something resembling an eyebrow emerged and whilst it was still quite faint and needed filling in, the outline was finally there. I was chuffed!

 

Next up was what I was really scared of - filling in. Looking back now, I feel so silly deeming it 'scary' but I knew that this could either make or break the whole process (this is deep stuff yanno). I had to find the right formula and in the correct shade, and then of course actually get the whole filling-in business down. I didn't particularly fancy the 'slug brow' and didn't want to go too thin either. I wanted them to look natural and, in a nutshell - 'my-brows-but-better'. In a movie-style  moment, I eventually came to the realisation that if I wanted the best looking brows I needed to follow my natural shape being a delicate and light as I can. Yes I know, seems obvious now, but to a once-brow-novice like I was - this was genius.

I started filling them in and behold - there was a brow. However, there were still issues that pictures from the time are now evidence for. I started out using a cheapy MUA pencil which, whilst at the time looked ok for the first month of brow application, after a while I noticed that in some lights it came out gingery and almost looked like it had a touch of shimmer (?!) to it. I know, I know. I hastily binned this to my horror and rushed back to Superdrug to pick up another fairly-reasonably-priced-but-not-gingery-and-not-shimmery pencil. I came out with a 2 True one which, to my relief, was good. It matched my eyebrows much better and there wasn't a fleck of glitter in sight. The formula was nice and waxy, more so than the MUA, meaning I felt like I had more control and better longevity was to be had. A while down the line and I still had issues of my brows looking a bit too light for my preference and so I bought the darker shade and the inevitable happened. The lighter shade was too light and my new choice, too dark. I ended up having to layer one coat of each onto my brows to sort of mix them together to create a shade I liked. But whilst I liked the shade, I realised it would be much easier if I actually had that exactly in one product only. This is where my new love, the L'Oreal Brow Artiste pencil, came in. A closer colour match to my actual brows, and a formulation that was soft enough to draw on, buy waxy enough to stay put - it was love. And I don't see that changing anytime soon...