Posts Tagged ‘brow’

TOTALLY TINTED

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photo: steven meisel/design: eunice chun

Being a natural strawberry blonde with invisible eyebrows that have no natural arch, I’ve been going a brow specialist for years to shape and tint them and would die without her! I can’t stress enough how important brows are, and if you don’t have someone in your town who only does brows, don’t fret! You can ask your colorist at your favorite hair salon to add a little hair dye on them, or you can try an at-home kit. I saw Sarah Agajanian again last week for my monthly wax, trim + tint and asked her what her top five commandments for brows are to share with our readers. So without further ado, here’s what she so generously shared:

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WHY NOT…

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photo: getty images/dior haute couture s/s 2010 backstage

I remember the first time I really noticed this technique was on Nicole Kidman’s character Satine’s brows in Moulin Rouge and I became obsessed with it.  It’s a simple trick to make our eye area look even bigger, in essence by making the frame bigger. For such a small detail, it really adds a chic element to your look.  Here’s how to brave it at home:

You can use a brow pencil, pen or shadow with a stiff angled brush, depending on whatever you are most comfortable with. Personally, I would use a brow shadow and brush.  I would also recommend using the same shade as your own brows for daytime or you can get away with a darker shade at nighttime.  Honestly, it’s more of a “look”, so we’re fooling ourselves if we think people can’t look closely and see what we’ve done. But who cares!  It’s such an amazing look that most people will just see the bigger picture of how pretty you look and how big your eye area looks, not the details.

First start by grooming and filling in your brows (refresher: Lauren and I show you how in our Brows 101 post). It’s important though to go ahead and create more of an arch if you don’t naturally have one (like me!). You can see where the arch should be in Step 6 of the Brow post. Now for the fun part:

This shot of the lovely Frida Gustavsson from backstage at last year’s Dior Spring/Summer Haute Couture runway show is perfect because I don’t have to draw the angles onto the picture as her winged liner already did it for me! Look at her cat liner and imagine if you were to extend it towards the hairline, it would intersect perfectly to the end of her exaggerated brow. This is what you too will want to keep in mind when you elongate your brow. Hold your brow brush or pencil from the outside of the corner of your eye at the angle of the outside-corner of the bottom lashline, similar to Step 7 with Lauren in our Brows 101 post, but a little more obtuse. Then envision where the brow, if it were lengthened, would cross it.  Draw a little dot there, then draw in your brow using small brush stokes in hair-like motions until you reach the dot. Yes, hairlike brush motions are important to make it look more natural than merely drawing a line, but draw the hair-like motions all in one linear direction to create a line.  Hopefully, this is clear enough for you to take in and run with it, but tweet us if you’d like a future photo or video tutorial on it!

XO, Amy Nadine

BROWS 101

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photos: Justin Coit for thebeautydepartment.com post by amy nadine

We’ve gotten tons of requests for a brow tutorial– how to shape them, how to fill them in, how to elongate them, etc… This is so great because the correct brow shape can really lift the eye and slim the face.  First let me share my #1 rule: DO NOT OVER-PLUCK!!  Please!  There is nothing pretty about thin overly-tweezed brows.  Brows frame your eyes.  Cardinal sin #2: do not shape them into tadpoles with thin tails.  Cardinal sin #3: do not shave them or use a razor of any kind.  If you have committed any of those crimes, with no judgment from me, I hope you’ll reconsider and start growing them back in (and if they don’t grow, try using a lash-growth serum on them or even your dad’s hair-growth serum).  Then, follow these eight steps on how to get beautifully-shaped brows.

TOOLS

Spooly brush or disposable mascara wand, cuticle scissors, angled/slant tweezers, pointed tweezers, brow shadow (taupe for blondes, brown range for everyone else), stiff brow shadow brush, pencil (to line up the angles).

1. With a disposable mascara wand or spooly brush, brush the hairs upward to prepare for Step 2.

2. With a pair of scissors, trim any hairs that are longer than your brow shape.

3. With angled tweezers, pluck areas above and below the brows, grabbing a couple at a time.

4. With pointed tweezers, grab stubborn single hairs and shorter ones.

5. To determine where your brow should start, hold a pencil or make-up brush along one side of your nose.  Where it crosses the inner corner of your brow, that’s where it should begin.

6. Now angle the pencil across the iris; that’s where the arch should begin.

7. Angle it to the end of the outer corner of the eye; that’s where the brow should end.

8. With those angles and lengths in mind, fill in the brows using light, feathery strokes as if you were drawing individual hairs.

XO Amy Nadine

MODERN FRENCH CHIC

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photo: je ne sais pais! post designed by lauren conrad

C’est tres joli!  I grew up loving French style, starting as a young girl staring at the illustrations when my mother read Madeline to me… her deep side-parted hair, hat and their school-girl uniforms and pea coats… then it progressed to French ballerinas, Gigi and French cinema, and as I got older (of course)  French Vogue changed my life.  Now I especially love Isabel Marant’s vision of the carefree and modern French lifestyle.  And this chic look translates easily to makeup.  Because anything that is chic is at its core, simple and effortless.  Here, one of my favorite models, Bambi Northwood Blyth, demonstrates how you can strip away excessive makeup down to three components: 1. a big, filled-in brow, 2. spidery (yet not clumpy) lashes and 3. a stained lip.

Even if your brows aren’t as blessedly thick as Bambi’s, you can still recreate the same bold effect by filling them in with a pencil or powder that is a shade or two darker than your actual color.  Spidery lashes can be accomplished by powdering them with loose powder in between the first and second coat of mascara.  For a refresher course, revisit our Big Bold Brow and Spider Lashes posts.  Lastly, there are many ways to achieve stained lips.  The obvious choice is using one of the many great stains out there.  Or you can fill in your entire lip with a berry or rose-colored lip pencil and follow with lip balm.  A third option would be apply lipstick, blot with a tissue, apply again and blot one more time.  The key is to not look “made-up,” so make sure the lips have a hint of color and no more.  Add a croissant, close your eyes and voila!  You’re at a little Parisian street cafe about to stroll the River Seine.

XO Amy Nadine