Eyebrows Frame Your Face, Never Neglect Them

Keep Color In Brows For a Balanced Appearance

When you think of the important points of the face, what do you think of ? Most people say the “eyes”. Then nose, then mouth. Me….I say eyebrows. Eyebrows are front & center and seen as soon as you look into someone’s eyes, I feel they ‘frame’ the face and both the shape and color of them can completely change your look. Spend some time learning how to groom them properly, if you do not have an eyebrow specialist in your town – become your own. I will teach you how……….. I have spent years going to and being the best in eyebrow care.
I challenge you to compare photos of celebs before they became famous versus now. Oprah is a perfect example. Her brows before she became famous were completely different…its amazing what $$ does to the look of the face and I am only talking brows. I will keep my eyes open for comparison photos and will post and bring this subject back up once I find them. I have them its just in my files of 50,000 photos which are not organized/labeled and I can’t find them. But soon – soon. I’m not a fan of using celeb photos . . . as I’m sure you’ve noticed. People use celeb photos to get people to come to their website under false pretenses – something I try not to do. Besides, with a daughter who shoots celebrity photos I know how little of those photos are real, and feel it is an unfair photo to put in front of you, they Photo Shop the hair in every photo now . . . how can you ever hope to compare to CGI especially as we age?

One of the more annoying problems of aging is not only losing the color in the hair on our heads, but losing the color in the hair around our eyes, brows and lashes more specifically. You know what the biggest mistake is on this photo above of the aging model ? ? ( which btw she would FAIL – BIG TIME - as a make-up ‘Aging’ test ) -- she forgot to change the brows….to be faded and barely there ! As a natural born redhead, I’ve never known the wonders of pigmented hair around the eyes, we have next to none since birth…so color-less is a way of life for me . I have been tinting my brows and lashes since I was 16 and could drive myself to a Salon.
Melanin is the pigment that gives hair and skin its natural color. How light or dark it is and its natural tone, depend on how much and what kind of melanin it contains and how that melanin is arranged in the hairs. I feel the part of hair coloring that most people get confused on is understanding what actually affects the color change. Many seem to think if you apply color “A”, your result should look exactly like color “A” when you are finished and unfortunately that is just not how it works. High Dollar Colorists and fancy Beverly Hills Salons would not exist if it was that simple, everyone would be walking around as Jennifer Anniston hair clones.

The color result depends as much on the natural pigmentation (DURP) of the hair as it does on the ‘artificial pigmentation’ used. In other words, if I was to mix up a batch of Level 8 Ash with 30 Volume and applied it to 5 different people with the exact same color of virgin Level 6 hair……..EVERY single one of them would have a completely different result.
With a few Eyebrow Coloring Kits leaving this week & a couple new brow shaping products arriving, I re-priced the kits and added options in my never-ending attempt to make things as easy as possible for you.
After the age of about 40 – 50 the color begins to drain out of the eyebrow hairs along with everything else and being as gray truly is pigment-less hair not actually gray – it looks so much better if once 1-2X a month you tint those brows. I want you to feel better about your situation – For the last 15 years every Sunday I have had to tint my eyebrows and every 4th would tint my albino lashes…it has SUCKED…big time. 96% of people have pigment in their brows, and lashes, so remember how lucky you are.
I have been tinting my own and all my clients eyebrows for years, what do the rest of you do? I know there are the stubborn grays on brows which many time begin in the early 20’s, but from the 30’s on… most people deal with squirrely grays, flailing whites and generally misshapen fence-like burley brows. I’ve always taught the brows are the most important part of the face. They are front & center … and seen as soon as you look into someone’s eyes, I feel they ‘frame’ the face and both the shape and color of them can completely change your look. I urge you to spend some time learning how to groom them properly, if you do not have an eyebrow specialist in your town, learning the art ‘of’ is not really that hard and will start with tinting and trimming.
For humor I thought I would relay to you that the clients that elected to go to the big eyebrow specialist here in our hot-shot Salon (Anastasia) would spend anywhere between $300. - $600. per shape & color appointment. Funny….huh? Plus a round trip of at least 4 hours to accomplish. That’s life in Malibu / L.A., we’re a million miles from anything & everything.
Eyebrow Tinting
STEP 1 Tinting
If you begin the process by tinting the brows, all the little hairs have color in them so you don’t miss them - - I’ve made it easy – all you have to do is to pick the “Level” Kit you want -- providing you are not wanting any ‘red’ in the end result -- you will receive 2 tubes of color that you need to mix 50 - 50 plus the appropriate developer for Brows comes with. You receive the 2 best brushes I’ve found for applying that color, as you want the color to saturate the wiry hair strands…the color needs to be heavily lopped on, yet painted on precisely in the shape of the brow. Getting the color on the skin will stain, and I have never even tested it, as I can’t imagine anyone wanting the Tint stained right smack on the front of the face…so cleaning the color off the face right after applying it, is just as important as the application. Hair color itself -always “expands”as it processes . . so color just “INSIDE” the lines of your brow with the color product, the liquid will expand/swell and cover the entire brow once you get it brushed on. Clean up around the shape of the brow “after” 15 minutes and swelling subsides with Q-Tips and water, toner or alcohol. At this point the color should be on the brow crisp and cleanly shaped ; the exact shape of the brow. Now, go make yourself lunch . . . leave the brows alone, while the color fully develops… at least 45 minutes – 55 is better.

In the Kit you receive 1 tube of an “N” series color and that is the tube that you will vary according to the amount of gray or the stubbornness in your hairs. A good general rule is to use the percentage comparable to the percentage of gray you have. 50% Gray? Use 50% “N” series. . . and then just add the opposing color until you get to 100%. 40% N use 60% “B” color or whatever we’ve sent. Its actually pretty straight up.
The color is done processing you grab a paper towel or tissue, run under warm water….and wipe the color off with just water. Keep rubbing till all the color is off and the tissue is clean. Use a little muscle! Poof you are done that part!
Eyebrow Trimming
The next important part of eyebrow care is the tweezer/scissor part. The first step to trimming the brow is to “COMB”….(yes, comb) the brow hair straight up toward the forehead as you see in my half-assed renderings here. . . .
Comb the hairs straight up with a cutting comb, then trim along the line of the existing brow as shown in #5 & #6 …holding the scissors perpendicular to the floor. Continue to comb straight up with comb and trim a little at a time, watching result and be sure to NOT overdue.

Once trimmed, begin tweezing. Again – start and continue process by combing brow upwards ( which is where the hair in your brows should be heading - - always upward ).
Tweezing should be in the middle above the nose and as little under the brow and on top of the brow as is possible – too THIN of an eyebrow never looks right, I promise you. Shaping the brow will be a while other post. I have to get a couple stencils in order to do that one justice. . . but we won’t be through with brows until we have another 5-6 Posts on the subject.
I’m really excited about the new tweezers and scissors I have come across, I’ve always known they can make the same quality for a decent price…they are on their way here, check them out in the store along with the Eyebrow kits.
I happened to find both that are Stainless Steel and work as fine as the super pricey ones. I KNEW THIS COULD BE DONE. That is the problem with “good finds” they are so damn hard to ‘find ;-) .
Just trim and groom your eyebrows once. . . give it a chance. . when I’m waiting in lines I notice so many people who never touch their eyebrows ( yet, they really need to ) . . I cannot imagine what I would look like if I didn’t do my own.
Killer Chemist