Raising a Brow

I'm no stranger to make-up.  I've danced my whole life and, as Mrs. Barrettes will tell you, that can give you lots of practice with faux lashes!  My stage make-up skills carried over to everyday make-up, which my college roommates were pretty psyched about.  I was always happy to paint their eyelids for a night out on the town.  I feel pretty comfortable with a brush and some shadow, but put a pair of tweezers in my hands and I simply have no idea what to do.


I'm what I like to call "eyebrow illiterate."  Ever since I was about 16, I've plucked about two hairs between my eyebrows, and another two hairs underneath each one.  Fortunately, my eyebrows aren't too unruly naturally.  But this minimal maintenance has left me with no shape, no arch.  Allow me to show you an example:

Before plucking...

...and after.  Not much of a difference, huh?

I really wanted to master my brows before the wedding.  The problem was that I didn't trust myself with them, but I was scared to have them done.  I wasn't afraid of the pain from waxing; I was afraid that I would end up overplucked.

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Then, my friend introduced me to Anastasia of Beverly Hills.  This cosmetics company specializes in eyebrows, and my friend had nothing but good things to say about them.  For $30, they wax, trim, pluck, shape, and fill your brows.  Yes, that's a bit steep.  But when I learned about their methodology, I decided to splurge.  I thought y'all might be interested to hear about it, too, in case you wanted to try this place yourself, try some place similar (and hopefully cheaper!), or go the DIY route!

Anastasia bases their brow design on something they call the "Golden Ratio."

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The stylist took some eyeliner and drew three lines on each of my eyebrows.  The first indicated the medial border of my eyebrow, which lined up with my nostril.  The second indicated the lateral border of my eyebrow, which shot out diagonally from the edge of my nostril.  The third indicated the peak of my arch, which lined up with the middle of my nose and my pupil.  Using these three points, the stylist then chose a stencil that fit my shape best.  I'm apparently the "high arch," which I found interesting because I didn't even know I had any arch at all!

The stylist began to shade in the stencil to guide the waxing and the shading.

Then, the stylist waxed and plucked.  She filled in the thinner areas with a powder that matched my hair color.  Then, she glossed over it with a brow gel.  She applied some cream to sooth the surrounding area.  Finally, she traced over the bottom of each brow with a highlighting pencil.

I loved the finished product.  It looked natural, but sophisticated.  I actually had a shape to my brows, but not so much that I looked like a Disney villain!

Anastasia sells a brow kit for $85 that includes nearly everything that my stylist used on me: the stencils, tweezers, a brush, the powder that matched my hair, the brow gel, the soothing lotion, and the highlighter pencil.

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Again, the price was steep, but I saw it as an investment.  If this meant I could maintain my eyebrows independently until the wedding, I would save money in the long run.  So, I bought the kit.  Anastasia gave me a fresh start on eyebrows, and I can take it from here.  This morning, I used the stencil to fill in my eyebrows...and I was pleasantly surprised with how many compliments I received!  I truly feel that I have conquered the eyebrows that I once feared so much.  Best of all, I feel like it's given me confidence.  It's added a new element to my wedding day face, and I'm pretty psyched about that.

Are you currently experimenting with something for your wedding day look?  How's it going?