Eyebrow Makeover for Spring

The most underrated element of a beautiful makeup look is the eyebrows. Celebrity makeup artist Darrell Redleaf says the shape, including where your brow arches, where it's wide and where it's thin, is the key. Here's how to give yourself an eyebrow makeover.

Look at the inside corner of your eye, where it's closest to your nose. Pick up a pencil, a makeup brush or a ruler ‑- anything long, straight and slender. From the inside corner of your eye, follow a line straight up. If you've got an eyeliner or eyebrow pencil, mark where the line crosses your eyebrow. Do the same from the inner corner of your other eye.

If you have hair inside the two marks, you are close to a unibrow situation. Pluck all that hair out, but don't overpluck. If your eyebrows don't reach the marks above the inner corners of your eyes, then you need to fill those parts in.

Take your pencil, makeup brush or ruler and hold it against the outer corner of one of your nostrils. Hold it at an angle so that it crosses the bottom outer corner of your iris. (Not the eye itself, but the outer edge of your iris when you're looking straight ahead.) Follow the line upward until it crosses your eyebrow. That's where your eyebrow arch needs to be at its highest ‑- that's the peak of the arch. To create an arch where there is none, gently pluck hairs from the brow bone. Always pluck from the bottom and not the top (with the exception of removing strays from the top of the brow). The arch should start coming down immediately after this peak.

Taking the pencil, makeup brush or ruler to your nose again, line it up at the outer edge of the nostril and let the line go to the edge of the eye and continue up until it crosses the brow area. That's where your brow should end.

Redleaf's rule of thumb for eyebrows is to use taupe eye shadow to fill in any sparse areas and give an arch a natural-looking emphasis. Even very light-skinned blondes should use taupe, he says, because you want to define the brow, not wash it out. to Redheads, or anyone with a reddish tone in the skin, should choose a taupe or neutral color with a little amber in it, and dark-skinned people should try some brown shades until they get the right one. If all of this sounds like too much work, get your brows shaped first by an expert. After that, it's easy for you to just follow the shape the stylist has given you.

source from http://beauty.ivillage.com