Thursday, January 2, 2014

Elizabeth's Brow Bible (Part I of 2000)


Eyebrows are the very first step of stage makeup. They frame the face and provide you with a guideline for your eye makeup, especially that all-important eyeliner wing. When we think of the most beautiful women (Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, and Marilyn Monroe) all have beautifully thick, gorgeously groomed eyebrows.

However, we aren’t all born Cara Delevingne. Some of us have naturally thin brows. Some of us have transparent ones.  And even for those blessed with an abundance of brows, shape is important.

Here is what we don’t want to see: atrociously plucked brows. You know the ones: the tadpoles, the scouse brows, the thin semi-circle arcs, the ones that don’t begin until somewhere above the iris, etc. These disasters are completely man-made*.   



Nobody ever saw a toddler with weird crescent moons above their eyebrows. 


So what shape do we want to see? One of our dance fairies has sparse pale blond eyebrows, so we’ll use her to demonstrate.



Let’s start at the nose and work our way out. Firstly, the eyebrows should begin no further out than the beginning of the inner corner of the eye. Ideally, begin closer in, aligning with where the nostril begins its flare. 



From there, it is a mostly straight line (some ascend, some are horizontal, but the width generally remains stable) to the peak, which occurs at the outer edge of the iris. It is this line that controls how much of an arch you will have and depends entirely on face shape. Try to follow the natural line.  Most often, nature gets the basics right.



Finally comes the tail, which is where the eyebrow tapers to a point of sorts.  To find the end of the tail, imagine a straight line from the edge of your nostril to the outer corner of your eye.  You might even go beyond that line.  And voila: eyebrows!



*All deft and multi-dimensional illustrations have been provided by a totally spectacular individual who is not Elizabeth and should in no way reflect upon the eyebrowey musings of Elizabeth.

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