My foray into eyebrows came about when I was preparing for my wedding. My original eyebrows are very unruly. They had absolutely no structure, the hair grew in all directions and their width reminded me of the elastoplasts used to cover minor cuts. When I started watching Michelle Phan on Youtube way back in 2008, I was confused when she mentioned that we should follow the natural shape of the brows when it came to grooming them. Natural shape? Seriously? I would stand in front of the mirror, staring hopelessly at the pair of caterpillars above my eyes. I never had the guts to do anything to them at the time, too afraid that I might botch them up and too scared to allow anyone else touch them in case they botched it up too.
This is what my original eyebrows almost looked like. Note the bushiness.
It wasn't until I got married that my eyebrows were finally trimmed. The makeup artist who did my makeup commented that they were difficult to trim because I had no arch. Thanks a lot. Needless to say, after the ceremony ended i was still too afraid to groom them myself, so again they grew into a forest. Two years later, i found myself being a housewife in Ireland with a less than year old baby. After completing the house chores and cooking, what was a girl to do? Youtube of course! And that's when I studied video after video and blog after blog of brow grooming (don't I wish I could apply this to my Diploma studies...)
Fast forward a few more years and I am proud to say that i have finally mastered the art of eyebrow grooming. Well, at least I am no longer afraid to take the scalpel (or in this case tweezers) to them. What still gives me a headache is finding the ideal shade of powder or pencil or gel or brow mascara. Most products i use have some amount of red and warmth to them which makes it look a bit odd. Mind u, I am typical asian with black hair. Unless I dye my hair a chestnut or burgundy colour, there is absolutely no need for red brows. I tried multiple products, mainly pencils.
Rimmel brow pencil is a holy grail for many beauties out there and on the recommendation of the beauty world it became my first brow product. It comes with a brush on the cap (which i think doesn't serve much of a purpose as it really is too thin...a spoolie would've been so much better). I picked the darkest shade available which proved too dark even for my black brows..or maybe I wasn't applying it right (let's not call the kettle black shall we). Next came the body shop eyebrow kit, which was too warm. Then the empro eyebrow pencil which was actually not too bad, but I still felt that something was a bit off. The essence brow kit and bobbi brown brow pencil in grey proved too warm too. I even used a Sendayu Tinggi black gel liner once since it didn't yield as black a line as I wanted. The result was a super crisp, well defined brow which was excellent for a night out but a bit too much for day time. At one point, i decided to try the darkest shade of grey eyeshadow from the Essence eyeshadow palette "Over the Taupe". Bingo! I found a shade which gave a totally natural look, and which didn't portray red brows. The key,i concluded, it to find a shade which leaned more grey than red.
Recently, I picked up the Maybelline Eyestudio Masterbrow Pencil. Swatches in the store portrayed a medium grey colour with absolutely no warmth to it. I immediately pictured elderly women with grey hair using this and was doubtful that it would work for me. But i was sold when i saw the price...at less than RM 20, it would not burn a hole in my pocket, unlike the Tarte and Too Faced products i was contemplating an hour earlier. So I trotted off home with it, cleaned off my current brows which the SA in Sephora had kindly drawn on for me and proceeded to sketch on my brow. I found the pencil easy to work with, very slim and it deposited pigments which were buildable. The end result was lovely (at least i thought so), absolutely no warmth in them, just the right amount of darkness and very well defined thanks to the fine tip.
A very happy camper for now...
I would still prefer to try a brow gel one day as i feel I have more control with a brush rather then a pencil.But losers can't be weepers, right? For the time being, this one is a keeper.
