Staying Fit
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Thanks to our new routine of wearing sweats and zero makeup while ripping open Amazon delivery boxes and repeatedly washing our hands, our once-groomed nails and brows have become unrecognizable. Those of us used to being pampered by sweet salon pros who snip, paint and prune away our extra bits are now on our own, along with everyone else. Here are 10 easy tricks that'll get you by.
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1. Fill more; tweeze less
Once you reach 50, every hair counts as eyebrow “tails” vanish or droop, fronts recede, and what's left turns skimpy, coarse, wiry or gray. Getting pluck-happy has always been a danger, but never more so than during home isolation, when boredom and tweezers beckon. To avoid mistakes, resist shaping brows until you see actual long dark stubble (enough to grab) or random stray hairs. Skip the magnifying mirror and work in natural light near a window — not in your dim bathroom. Most important, apply brow makeup before picking up a tweezer. We always pluck too much when working on a bare brow. Don't try to change your brows’ shape; instead, work on building it up.
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2. Groomed brows make a cosmetics-free face look fresh
Even if you skip all other makeup routines, do your brows. Whether yours are skimpy and barely there or raggedy and overgrown, start grooming by applying brow pencil, to define the basic shape, and brow powder (or eye shadow), to fill in any gaps. Keep the arch about two-thirds of the way out for an extended modern look. Once you apply makeup, go in and carefully tweeze stubble above and below the basic shape. (Restrict this to as few pulls as possible.) Choose brow makeup in cool, ashy shades of brown, taupe or charcoal, rather than warm hues with a red or yellow base, as these look much more natural, whatever your hair color.
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3. Trim long, wiry brow hairs
Hey, guys, this is for you, too. Crazy hairs that boing and curl and disrupt the shape of the brows make a mature face look messy and tired. Who needs that? Brush all brow hairs up with a makeup spoolie (a mascara wand–style brush, without mascara) or an old clean toothbrush. Then use a small scissors (like one for nails, nose hairs or embroidery) to trim tips of hairs that extend above the top line of the brow. To keep trimmed-but-still-coarse-and-wiry hairs in place, simply brush your brows upward with a tiny dab of hair gel or a gel made specifically for brows. A tinted gel can even help blend white and gray hairs in with darker ones, for a more even-colored look.
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