Use Soap to Shape and Tame Your Eyebrows
Thick, fluffy eyebrows – you know, the ones you plucked in the 90s and refused to grow back – are seriously making a comeback. For those of us with natural “fur” brows, the flood of readily available tinted brow gels has been a godsend in recent years: a good gel accentuates your existing hair, making it much easier to imagine your brows looking naturally luscious.
I love colored gel fibers, but they tend to smear all over my skin and create mess – and they just don’t hold my eyebrows in place very well. Introducing Soap Brows, a technique that has been gaining traction again since Pixiwoo’s Sam Chapman posted avideo of the technique in June 2016. I tried it around that time and I remember feeling underwhelmed – the hair on my eyebrows is stiff and long enough to be slightly curly when combed straight up, which is too much for everyday wear. However, I recently ran out of a tinted eyebrow gel that I love and decided to try the good old soap again. After a little play, I worked out my technique and now it is an integral part of my makeup routine. If you are interested in soapy eyebrows or have been disappointing in the past, here’s how to set yourself up for success.
First things first, you’ll need the right equipment: a bar of translucent glycerin soap, a reel brush (I buy mine in large packs because they’re so damn useful), and a small bowl of water.
Start with a bare face; Since soap literally washes away pigments, soap should be the first step in applying makeup. Combing your brows also makes sparse areas more visible, so you probably need less color across your brows than you think. By the way, use powder or lipstick for this; pencils do not work well with dried soap.
Comb your brows with a coil so that the hairs are pointing in approximately the same direction. Rinse the brush in water, tap the rim of the glass several times to knock off excess, and gently rub the tip of the soap until you see a little lather. (Keeping the lather on the tip of the brush makes over-application much more difficult, so resist the urge to knead it all in soap.)
Usejust the tip of the brush to first apply the soap to the most unruly part of the brow – for me, those wire brows right around my arch – and then move on to other areas. Continue brushing your hair as you go, shaping it as desired. People with really thin eyebrows should brush their hair straight to the hairline, but if you’re starting to get the wild curly brows look, brush right over the craziest hairs to get them back in shape.
Repeat the process until you are in shape and then let the soap dry while you apply the rest of your makeup. If it turns white as it dries, you have used too much soap; wet the brush again, tap on it and brush gently to remove excess dried soap.
When the soap is completely dry, use a very small, thin brush – I use this $ 2 Essence brush – to sparingly apply powder or lipstick in soft, hair-like strokes exactly where you need it. The powder is gentle and gentle, it adheres well to soap residues, so I usually use it, but if I need something really bulletproof, I use Make Up For Ever Aqua Brow. It’s also fluid enough that I can get a super fine point on my brush, making for incredibly lifelike strokes that look like hair.
Very few makeup techniques are truly universal, but this is as close as possible. Whether your eyebrows are incredibly thin or thick to the point of being naughty, a little soap will allow you to shape them into any shape you like and keep them there all day.