makeup
WHY NOT…
- 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
- 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
