Some people say the eyes are the windows to the soul. But we say the eyebrows are. Brows have an enormous effect on your look, and by changing just the shape or color, you can completely transform. Of course, most days we do the standard filling in and maintenance, but in all honesty, that can get old. In an effort to shake up our look and kick this mundane grooming task up a notch, we enlisted makeup artist Chichi Saito. Combining her expertise and a killer product arsenal from Benefit Cosmetics, we put together three brow looks that'll take you from plain ol' polished to positively head-turning.
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The Contrasting Brow
Sometimes the biggest transformations come from the smallest of tweaks. This change can be as simple as just deepening the color of your brows. By filling in your brows just one to two shades darker than your hair, you'll create a striking contrast that puts your arches front and center. To achieve this look, first clean up your set. Use a slanted pencil, like Benefit's Goof Proof Eyebrow Pencil, to shape and fill them in. Start at the widest part of your brow and make short, angled strokes along your natural brow line. Draw in the direction your hair naturally grows, filling in any sparse areas.
Next, pack on the color. Choose a tinted gel that's a shade darker than your hair color and sweep it through your brows, starting at the inner corners and working outward. Brush on one or two coats, building the pigment as you go and, voilà. You have bold, contrasting brows.
Feathered Brows
Feathered brows (also called fluffy brows) are basically the "no-makeup makeup" look for your eyes. They're full, natural-looking, and artfully disheveled on purpose. To get the fullest brows, it's best to keep your hands off them for six to eight weeks (that's right, no tweezing), so they can fully grow in. Then, after you've been super patient, grab those tweezers and clean up any stray hairs. Next, use a thin-tipped pencil to fill in sparse spots as needed. The thinner the pencil you use, the more hair-like and precise your strokes will appear.
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Use a dry spoolie to brush your brows upward, then add volume and color with a tinted gel. We used Benefit's Gimme Brow Volumizing Eyebrow Gel. Brush on one to two coats, and you'll have a bushy brow worthy of a runway.
Glittery Arches
This glittery brow is perfect for those who like to shine — literally. It calls not only for some sparkle, but also a defined, shapely brow. To get the look, paint along your brow line using a cream-gel formula, like Benefit's Ka-Brow! Eyebrow Cream-Gel Color. Use an angled brush to apply the color, tapering off the ends into angled points.
Next, place a dot of hand cream or lotion onto the back of your hand. Look for a product with a thick consistency to best hold the glitter in place. Dab a small eyeshadow brush into the lotion first, then dip into a pot of glitter. (You can choose any color you like, because let's face it — subtlety isn't exactly the aim here.) Trace the glitter just beneath your brows, outlining the bottom of your arches with sparkle and shine. See? We told you you'd turn heads.