By Funmi Azike

Nothing exudes sophistication like a pair of beautiful groomed eyebrows. Well-kept brows frame the eyes and give your face a polished look. Common methods of grooming the brows include waxing, threading and tweezing. To avoid mishaps, these procedures are best left to a professional. However, if you must shape them on your own, ditch the blade and buy a good pair of tweezers and develop the skill to use them.

Tweezer

Tweezing Tips
• Tweezing should be done after a bath or shower, when skin is supple.
• Choose a tweezer with a pointed or slanted tip. This grips the hair best.
• Always tweeze in a well-lit place. Natural daylight is best; you can sit by a window and use a hand-held mirror.
• Cleanse the area thoroughly and remove all traces of the cleansing product with toner or rose water to ensure there is no oil on the skin.
• Brush the eyebrows upwards and outwards.
• Use a brow pencil to draw a line along the natural brow line. This will serve as a guide and prevent over-plucking.
• Hold your skin with the opposite hand and gently pull the skin of the outer edge of your eyebrows up and out so you can see the brow bone and use it as a guide.
• Pluck hair one at a time. Pluck a few hairs from one brow, then stop and pluck a few from the other. Always check to make sure the shape is even on both brows.
• Always tweeze from underneath the brow following the natural shape and plucking hair out in the direction it grows.
• Start at the middle of the brows and work towards your ear, then work from the middle in towards your nose.
• Clean the tweezed area with a cotton bud dipped in a mild astringent or diluted disinfectant.

Eyebrow Brush

Colouring the Eyebrows
• Using an eye pencil, colour the hairs with light feathery strokes starting from the inner corner towards the outer edge of the eye. Then gently brush to soften the lines. You can brush the brows using a brow brush, a soft toothbrush or an old mascara brush.
Or
• Using an angled eye-shadow brush, apply a bit of dark brow shadow/gel to the brow. Follow the direction of the brow and extend the brushed-on colour to the edge of the eye.
The colours of the brows are usually determined by hair and skin colour.  Go one shade darker if hair is light and one shade lighter if hair is dark. But, generally for women of colour, pencils in shades of brown soften the appearance the eyes and draws more attention to the eyes not the forehead like the black colours.
• Before colouring your brows, brush them upwards to make sure they are even, and now brush them horizontally to make sure no strand is out of place.