We're all familiar with the saying: Your eyebrows are supposed to be sisters, not twins. But for some of us, the arches of our brows are more distant, like second or third cousins — at different heights, with varied degrees of fullness — and we choose to put in tedious mirror time to shape them closer towards symmetrical.
Such was the plight of Celeste Northern, our featured client in the most recent episode of Refinery29's YouTube series, Macro Beauty. In today's episode, Northern visits Cat Chung, lead artist at NYC's Tint Brow Studio, to try an innovative new approach to microblading known as ombré powder brows.
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According to Chung, the ombré powder brow is a permanent-makeup technique designed to diffuse the drama of a tattooed eyebrow. "The ombré powder brow service is a bit newer to the market," Chung says. "It involves lighter shading in the front of the brow with gradual darkening towards the tails, which creates a super-natural result."
The service is ideal for a client like Northern, who's just looking to save herself a few minutes in the morning by eliminating the need for everyday eyebrow makeup. Her goal is for her brows to be more defined and "filled in," and a smidge more symmetrical, but her big caveat is that she wants to keep them looking natural.
The microblading process with ombré powder is a marriage of geometry and art, and for Chung, it can take up to three hours from start to finish. First, she closely inspects Northern's natural brows, noticing sparseness towards the ends where she'll fill in for shape. Next, she applies a stick-on ruler lamination to the forehead, and stencils the angles of each arch to confirm symmetry. Then, she applies a numbing cream before using a small tattoo pen to shade the brows, working from the tail to the head on each side.
Afterwards, Northern is able to admire her new eyebrows. "Oh my God, I'm obsessed," she exclaims, checking the mirror and noting the subtlety of the results. "I was a little nervous that I was going to walk out looking very extreme — like I had very bold eyebrows — but that's definitely not the case. This is definitely a confidence-booster." Check out the entire process in the video above.