I still remember how it starts. You start plucking your brows, suddenly you notice how uneven they are and then you pluck some more. And some more. Next thing you know, your brows are so thin, if you just put enough foundation on, they practically disappear.
Yes, using too much foundation was another one of my late-teen beauty mistakes.
Story of my life.
I mean, plucking my brows was like a ritual- just like acrylic french tips which I always did myself (it might have taken me 3 hours at a time, but my fake nails were my pride and joy back in high school, thank you very much). I’d put on some music or watch some Polish soap operas on my laptop, grab my tweezers, my round mirror, and I was in the zone for the next 40 minutes or so.
I can’t say that I was ever happy with my brows back then. I kind of knew I was over-plucking them, but I always told myself “just gotta get this one. And this one. Now, this one is the last one, I promise.” Those mofos were so thin, not even a brow pencil could help me. I mean, the point of using a brow pencil is to fill in those sparse, empty areas; each of my brows was one empty area covered with a handful of brow hairs, so…
I’m not exactly sure when my “over-plucked-to-full” transition started, but I have a feeling it happened right around the time my sister talked me into getting my brows threaded. And right then, was when I fell in love with threading. I loved the way my sister’s brows looked, so I decided grow mine out and try getting them threaded again (the first time didn’t do much since there wasn’t much to work with) I didn’t touch my brows for a month, hoping to grow them out a bit, but they were as thin and awful-looking as ever. They just would. not. grow.
That’s when I started using RapidBrow (since I already loved RapidLash). Not gonna lie, it worked quite nicely, although I do remember the formula irritating my skin a bit. The only problem was that just like RapidLash, it stopped working after a while and that even after months of use, it still wouldn’t help me grow out the missing tail of my left brow.
And in case you don’t believe me that my brows were bad… well… here’s the proof.
I mean, I’d like to ask myself “what was I thinking?!” but apparently, at that time, thin brows were very much “in”. At least it seems that I thought they were.
I also went through a minor “Instagram brow” stage, although I still liked to keep them on a more natural side and didn’t exactly “carve’ them out; ’twas improvement, nonetheless.
Here are my brows today. Quite the difference, eh?
There are so many reasons why I’m loving this more-natural look:
I don’t have to obsess about my brows being completely even;
I don’t have to be very precise when filling them in;
My brow-grooming routine takes me about 2 minutes every two weeks or so;
I no longer stress about those little stray brows around my brow bone;
Because my brows are so full now, I can finally pull off the foundation and brow-only look and skip the mascara.
I still pluck my unibrow hairs, tho, doubt that will ever change. Although, I’m one to never say never, so who knows.
So, the question is, what’s the secret, right? Well, as it turns out, it’s no secret at all. I’ve been using something that my Gran used (and she had the most beautiful brows); castor oil. She actually used it on my mom’s lashes too, after she cut them short with scissors when she was little, because she was annoyed that everyone was always talking about how long her lashes are (fun fact, decades later my sister did the same thing with her lashes when she was little. For the same exact reason. Weirdos.).
Castor oil is very thick and a little sticky and it’s very easy to apply too much. I like to mix 2/3 of castor oil and 1/3 of sweet almond oil and keep it in a clean (as in new) mascara tube. I wouldn’t recommend you use either of the oils straight out of the bottle- don’t try to dip any spoolies or brushes inside the oil bottles (I did it once and ended up with a painful stye). Olive oil works nicely for this too.
I use these mini plastic funnels to mix my oils.
When I started the process, I’d use only castor oil for about two weeks- which was also around the time when I noticed a difference. Years of plucking caused my brows to be very uneven; all it took was two weeks for them to start looking more like sisters and not distant cousins who’d only met once at another cousin’s wedding and haven’t seen each other since. Now, because of how thick castor oil is, I’d apply it on my brows and wash it off after 30-40 minutes (you can also just do this using a cotton round). I don’t like the idea of going to sleep with such a thick and oily product on my brows and lashes.
BUT once I added a little sweet almond oil (which is rich in Vitamin E) I noticed that that particular combo wasn’t as thick or sticky and I now apply the mix both on my lashes and brows before sleep. I do this as a last step in my routine- you want to first apply your serums and mositurizers.
I had a lot of *growing back* to do, so it took me a while to completely re-grow my brows. The most important thing is to stay away from those tweezers (unless you trust yourself around them). I also stopped threading my brows on regular basis to allow them to grow out into their natural shape.
This combo works nicely for my lashes as well- not so much for length, but the volume is definitely there.
After I stopped threading my brows I spend little to no time grooming them. I just pluck a few stray brow hairs here and there once in a while. I also no longer trim them with scissors.
Okay, well the real reason why I stopped threading my brows was because the only person I trusted, moved away. I’d literally drive 40 minutes for her to thread my brows. After countless mishaps with other girls form the same salon, I refuse to let anyone else touch my brows. Turns out that my brow girl moving away, was actually a pretty good thing for my brows as I was finally able to grow them back.
I swear that every single person who hasn’t seen me in a while, noticed that my brows changed. Whenever I hear “there’s something diffe….” I just say “brows! my brows. it’s the brows. that’s what’s different“. I keep getting asked if I tinted them, if I’m using a new brow pencil and my answer is no: I just decided to leave them the hell alone.
Do guys have any fun brow blasts form the past? Any one else suffered from an uncontrollable plucking syndrome?