How to keep your eyebrows in check during lockdown

[The GodFather]

 

 

If there’s one non-essential, first world problem that’s come out of disruption the coronavirus has caused, it’s managing our hair.

Whether you’re trying to keep the colour and roots looking tidy, want to trim off an overgrown inch or two, or just shave it off completely, it's all become much more of an issue now salons have closed.

 

But your eyebrow hairs are another thing to contend with, and if you like yours preened and polished, you’ll need to take matters into your own hands.

Vanita Parti MBE, CEO and founder of Blink Brow Bar shares the do’s and don’ts of eyebrow care at home, with advice on everything from waxing, tinting and tweezing them yourself, and being happy with the end results.

 

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What tools do you need?
Firstly you’ll need a decent pair of tweezers that are precise enough so you can pluck every stray hair without leaving you bald.

The Skinny Dip icon mini tweezer, £6, impressed us the most in our IndyBest review of tweezers, whose slanted tip makes it easy to remove even the shortest and most elusive hair with minimal pain, and the compact size is perfect to keep around for spur of the moment plucking.

“It seems obvious, but try to avoid being heavy-handed with the tweezers,” says Parti.

 

“Clearly define where your boundaries should be with a marker, you can use a concealer pencil to create a parameter of where you don’t want to touch the brows and to mark the point in the brow for the start, middle and finish,” she adds.

To avoid hair breakage, Parti recommends gently stretching your skin, grabbing your brow hair by the root and plucking in the direction of hair growth with your tweezers. “Step by step is key,” she says, so when you get to the arch of the brow, remove one hair at a time and view your brows before you continue to avoid overplucking.

“You may also need to trim the longer brow hairs with nail scissors, brush up with a brow tamer and snip any hairs poking above the brow line."

How to maintain your handiwork
 

As for the products to use after you've plucked, there’s plenty of different textures to play with. “Brow gels are best for offering a subtle amount of colour to brows as they only coat the brow hairs while brow pencils and pomades are great for a more defined look, fill in any gaps and to add colour and shape to brows,” explains Parti.

 

Glossier brow flick and boy brow duo, £25 came out on top in the IndyBest test of the eyebrow products, and the cult product doesn’t disappoint. The tiny-wanded brow mascara is great for big, lazy arches while the brow flick that comes in the set allows you to paint on individual hairs in any sparse areas.

We also like Benefit's goof proof brow pencil for filling in, which comes in nine natural shades. It's a waterproof formula and it also comes with a spoolie wand brush, too.