When we think about the ombré look in beauty, we tend to think of ombré hair, nails and even lips. That being said, we’re not sure why we’ve never considered adding our eyebrows to the list of things to add this gradient effect to.
But, when we watched eyebrow guru and founder of her Anastasia Beverly Hills, Anastasia Soare, create an ombré look, we knew we were destined to start rocking it. In her two-decade-long career, the Romanian CEO has tended to the arches of well-known celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Oprah Winfrey, Penelope Cruz, and in her own words “all of the Kardashians.”
In a nutshell, the ombré technique involves using different hues of brown to create a very subtle depth of colour. The final result: a bold brow that blocky, painted on look.
So what does it take to get this fabulous look? Keep scrolling.
Prime and prep your eyebrows
Prior to the application of a brow product, you want to run a wax based eyebrow primer over your brows as it will provide the perfect base for a longer-lasting and even application.
If you’re using an eyebrow powder, the waxy primer will also help the product to adhere better. Next, grab a spoolie brush to brush your brows in place (think up and away from your nose, so all the hairs are laying in the same direction) before you begin grooming or filling in.
Determine your eyebrow shape
Anastasia’s training in art school helped her to formulate her patented method of brow-shaping: The Golden Ratio, that’s become a popular point of reference.
She stressed the importance of working with your bone structure to find an eyebrow shape that works for you.
To see where your eyebrow should start, she recommends holding an eyebrow pencil vertically at the middle of each nostril and then marking that spot for later reference.
She then proceeds to angle the eyebrow pencil from the end of the nostril to the outer corner of the eye to determine where the eyebrow ends, and again made a mark. Lastly, she pivots the eyebrow pencil using the tip of the nose and aligned it to the iris to find the arch, and once again make that spot.
Fill in your eyebrows with eyebrow powder and an angled brush
Anastasia uses a stencil for this step. If you’re using an eyebrow stencil, you want to line up the stencil the best you can over your natural brow.
The stencils from Anastasia Beverly Hills have guiding lines on them to help you in your positioning. You can use the marks created earlier on to help you align the stencil.
With a brown eyebrow powder, start filling in the outer part of the eyebrow and make sure not to go over the mark created in the previous step. Fill in the rest of your brows with the same eyebrow powder.
Clean up
Pluck any stray hairs that lie outside of the brow line with a tweezer. Do the same with strays beneath your arch and beyond the end of the tail.
Define your brows
Begin to define your brows by outlining with a brow pencil starting a quarter way along the bottom of your brows.
Create hair-like strokes
If you have sparse spots, fake a bolder brow by using a brow pomade and an angled brush to feather in some “hairs”, following the direction of your natural hair growth, in a shade that matches your natural brow colour. Comb through with a spoolie to brush out any excess product.
Highlight underneath the brow bone
Doing so with a light, well-milled highlighter that is close to your natural skin tone can help to lift the appearance of the eye and fake a wider, perkier gaze. According to Anastasia, highlighter can also help to conceal stubborn little stray hairs that can’t be removed by tweezing.
Brush through your brows with tinted brow mascara
Build up each individual brow hair to give an illusion of thickness with a brow mascara. Choose a colour that is one shade lighter than your brows to tint them slightly lighter and take away any ashy tones.
And there you have it! Here’s the completed look!
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