I hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day! What did you do? Juliana and I had a great weekend with family and friends and I even marked a few things off the list–including my brows :). Getting them done made me think of my brow history: I sported the typical line-thin brows in high school and it wasn’t until college that I played around with pencils and letting them grow. While I got fullness right, I continued to struggle with shape. I tried waxing, stencils, and pencils. Sometimes waxing yielded a decent shape but it depended on the person. The stencils gave me scary huge brows, and creating the right shape with a pencil was time-consuming and beyond my skill level. I knew getting my brows right made a huge difference in my overall appearance and I was a little frustrated.
This continued after college, then one day while living in Hawaii I tried the Benefit Brow Bar. I walked in with slightly suspect brows and walked out with the perfect shape! Impressed, I asked the girl who explained Benefit’s “brow mapping” technique to ensure a great brow, every time. Shortly after I moved to North Carolina and looked up Benefit’s Brow Bars here. Every Ulta has one, so I was in luck! I tried a few different locations and each time came out with the brows I so coveted. Hooked!
The only downsides to the Benefit Brow Bar are the cost ($21) and the time it takes to drive there and get them done. Benefit recommends waxing every two weeks, but dedicating ~two hours and $42 to a month to brows is pretty steep! What I do instead is frequent the Brow Bar every two months and simply spend a few moments every other night tweezing baby hairs as they start to creep in. I find tweezing this frequently maintains the shape over a longer period of time. Eventually though it tends to stray and it’s back to the Bar. Here are my brows right before yesterday’s visit (sans brow pencil):
The shape wasn’t terrible but it was starting to lose some of its definition, particularly on the undersides. The hairs themselves were also getting a bit long.
And my brows after:
The arches are a lot more clear but still look natural. To fill in where any hairs are missing, I use this amazing brow pencil by Anastasia Beverly Hills in my five minute makeup routine.
So there you have it! My 3-step guide to guaranteed beautiful brows year round:
- Go to a Benefit Brow Bar (type your zip code here to see locations near you). If your brows are thin, go a week without tweezing first–this will ensure a much better outcome
- Take a minute (I promise-this is all it takes!) to tweeze the new hairs every other evening
- Fill in any little “gaps” with a brow pencil each morning
Let me know if you try it! And as always, feel free to email me with any questions. Follow me on Instagram at fifteenminutestoflawless for more beauty and style inspiration!
XO, Terra