Ok, here I go again. Constantly on a rant about brows. I LOVE EYEBROWS! They are the facial feature that have captured my heart - on men, women, boys & girls. I just love them! Although intended to be nature's protection for the eyes; serving as an awning of sorts to grab wayward debris from entering those peepers. How we have come to esteem them as such a thing of beauty? Maybe because of the way they frame our eyes, the beautiful windows to the soul...
Anywho...I believe my obsession was born out of the genetic card I happen to have been dealt. Those thick beautiful & full natural brows just don't run in my family. Being a beauty junkie since I was about 13 - I was primed to eventually become a Make-Up Artist; THAT IS HOW MY INTENSE LOVE AFFAIR WITH BROWS BEGAN!
Through my work, I am blessed with many opportunities to enhance, shape, sculpt, groom & create brow looks that run the gamut. Soft & pretty, striking high-fashion, faint & delicate, naturally refined...the list goes on & on! Having incorporated Make-Up Artistry Education into my repertoire, I have noticed a few buzz words/phrases that I always use in my descriptions of well done beautiful eyebrows.
Facial anatomy, symmetry, proportion, scale, balance...sometimes I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. Yet I keep it up; there is always someone who may get something out of what I keep saying over & over & over again. So if you find this boring, please turn away now!
Here I go!
The bad:
I see many brows EVERY DAY that I find to be criminal. Many done by the wearers themselves & LAWD HAVE MERCY - some people actually paid someone to make them look that way. UGH!!! Tragic. I created a few monstrosities on myself so you'll see what I mean:
ANGRY ANGULAR - Who came up w/this shape & that awful angle?...SCARY!
BETWEEN LOVE & HATE - Oh! A thin black line, REALLY??? REALLY???
EBONY & IVORY - I'm all for a nice brow highlight, but WHYYYYYYY!?
GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT - If that's not a comma, I don't know what is!
MAGNETIC FIELD - These seem to be drawn...TO EACH OTHER! WAAAAAAY too close.
ROAD BLOCK - There they are, THE BIG SQUARE BLOCK BROW! Just stop! Too too much harshy mcharshness & that wretched square. I shudder...
ROTUNDA - Ronald McDonald is not a beauty icon. The victims of these always look, well... surprised. Sad. :-(
IN-VITRO - My my my, sperm-like shapes have no place in browdom.
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? - Too big, arch too high, OVERDRAWN, just too too much & makes one look too too CRAZY!
BROWAREXIC - Ok, shape is ok, but why so so so very thin. These have definitely missed some meals.
TOO TOO STRAIGHT - NO CHASER - Too much of this brow is parallel to the floor. Stop it please!
See all of the above in my Facebook album,
Brow Styles I Despise!
The graph below is what I use to show bad proportion, scale & balance. Explained in detail in a previous blog
HERE.
This graph is what I use to show the beauty of obedience to facial anatomy. Simple as A, B & C! Also explained in detail
HERE.
Now, it 's only fair that I use myself, once again to exemplify what is wrong in the brow world & why it is just so important that brows do have scale, have balance, obey facial anatomy, have proportion & really have a somewhat seamless-ness about them - within the goal of achieving precision. So on the LEFT, Photoshop helped me to show why this blog's namesake - B.I.G S.Q.U.A.R.E B.L.O.C.K EYEBROWS should be banished from creation. Few, if any situations call for brows like this. After all CLOWNS are not style icons as I mentioned earlier & the beauty industry aesthetic is far from this & those atrocities above! On the RIGHT is my actual current Facebook & Twitter avatar; it shows how I really wear my brows most days.
See what I mean? A softer brow that fades faintly towards the bridge of the nose is so much more realistic, attractive & balanced. If you are a MUA & you do brows like the ones on the left, I hope I have offended you into reconsidering your technique & adjusting what you believe looks correct in the over-all scheme of brow things! :-)
The good: When working with brows, I always obey what I call the A B Cs of shaping which are shown here on a real live model. The premise is based upon consideration of the face as a whole; being mindful of every facial feature & their relation to brows. Eye spacing, the continuum between the brow & bridge of the nose, width of nose, width of lips...EVERY FACIAL FEATURE!!
My favorite technique for sculpting brows with color cosmetics is to enhance (& strengthen if sparse) brows with powder or eyeshadow in a hue that compliments the natural tones of the skin & the natural depth of the person's features. This would typically be a color that is slightly lighter than the hairs of their natural brow. I'll then go in with a SUPER SHARP brow pencil & draw VERY FINE hair-like strokes (same color as hairs of natural brow) in sparse areas to add dimension. I find powder alone can sometimes look flat & unrealistic. Pencil remedies that & lends to a more natural, real-looking mimic of the brow. Another method I often go to is using brown cream liner (with a very small, precise angle brush) to draw on super fine hair-like strokes that go in the same direction of hairs in that particular zone of the brow. For ultimate precision with this method, load brush with product, then pinch & shape with fingers. Which ever method I decide to employ, I find it very important to make sure the finished brow flows flawlessly into that beautiful curve of shading near the bridge of the nose (See near A in diagram). THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO AVOID SQUARE BLOCK EYEBROWS because you're obeying facial anatomy.
The following pics show some of my make-up work. These are some of my fave brows I have done in the past:
In conclusion, to my colleagues - OUR JOB IS TO GIVE OUR CLIENTS THE BEST! We have a duty to bring a certain level of expertise based on someone trusting us with providing them the most beautiful cosmetic enhancement. I say we do a disservice to them if we skew the interpretation with BAD BROWS! I REST MY CASE!
Sincerely,
Jennifer James, your friendly neighborhood
※ MAKEUP ARTIST [ARCH]-itect EyeBROWoPhile™ - Let me build on your beauty, I have the blue print.©
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Related blogs:
Precision ✔ Symmetry ✔ Proportion, uh - not so much!
The Perfect Brow
If I Did Their Brows. (Facebook album)
http://www.jenniferjames-beauty.com
