Your eyebrows are an important feature on your face, they frame your eyes and when they are styled properly you actually look better and need less makeup which is a boon for women in their 30's and 40's. Think a young Brook Shields good eyebrows are youthful. While her eyebrows of her 80's Calvin Klein days were way fuller in style than eye brows fashionable today, they are however youthful and alluring intheir naturalness. I can teach you how to achive beautiful eyebrows. Whether you have naturally nice brows as a basic foundation or you are blond and have light eyebrows or sporadic growth or no growth. While I cannot make your brows grow I will share with you how to achieive the best looking brows for what you have to work with and all it requires is a little patience, a few tools and regular maintainance. Here we go...

Step 1.Plant your dreams and they will grow - Let your eyebrows grow in! If you shave, over pluck or just have sporadic growth leave them alone for at least 6 weeks so you can see how much of an eyebrow you are going to have to work with and to start to define what kind of shape they naturally are inclined too. Becuase to look good your eyebrows need to be shaped in harmony with how your brows naturally grow. This is where the PATIENCE COMES IN!

Step 2. Study, Study, Study - I could do it for you if you were my client but you are there and I am here so I am going to show you how you can study eyebrows so you do not have to go spend the $30.00 a pop my clients pay me for a shaping. Instead spend $4.00 and buy (1) any magazine that shows styled womens faces up-close in advertisments and layouts, examples of good studies are : InStyle, Vouge, Allure, Bazzar, and or Marie Claire. Spend an hour make it fun, grab some herbal tea and a sharpie, and a hand mirror sit in a cozy chair in a well lit area and look..really study the eyebrows of these models and actresses in the ads and layouts. Study how their eyebrows work with their eye shape & face shape. See where they start and where they end, and compare brows. Then the fun part take a your sharpie and (no, don't draw mustaches on them though I know it is tempting) start to circle those eyebrows that are most similar in coloring as yours. Notice how they are shaped just keep looking and you will see a definate style among the brows. Then grab your mirror and take a good look at your brows and see how they are the same or different than those in the photographs. Are they groomed? slightly arched? Too thin? To thick? etc...cut out or tear out the photos of eyebrows that are most applicable to your eyebrow shape, and color.

Step 3. Apply the Basics -The biggest mistake I see at the salon I work at is women who over pluck the arch or shave (THE WORST) and women over pluck by a third the outer corner (near your temple) of their eyebrows. Keep your eyebrow basic line in perfect harmony to the inner and outer corners of your eyes at each point. Use a thin makeup brush handle to make an imaginary line at each corner, mark it with a brow pencil if you have to even it there is no hair at the outer temple corners this will allow you to see where you nee to grow the hair in, and don't worry you can fake it in the mean time. Just remember all good things come to those who wait!

Step 4. A Little Help from Your Friends - I cannnot express more the difference a little eyebrow dye can make especially for blondes and it is a great asset to dye them before shaping because you wil see you had eyebrow hairs you never knew about. Eyebrow dye I have used 3 % household peroxide with good results or you can use 10% peroxide (available at beauty supply stores) The dye is easy to use, (mix it 50/50 dye/peroxide in a shot glass) and all you need to apply it is a disposable mascara wand $1.95 for 20 (good for future applications and brow grooming) these can be purchased at the same beauty supply store. Mix it up and eave it on 1-3 min max, wipe it off with a cotton ball, then one dipped in tap water and voila you have instant brows to shape. It lasts about 2 weeks (varies for each individual) but easy to re-apply and is a vegtable based dye for saftey around your eyes.

Step 5. Power Tools -First and foremost buy a good tweezerman tweezer a brow/liner pencil and matte eyeshadow closest to your hair color, and make sure it is not to red if you have ash blonde/brown hair (some blond taupe pencils for blondes and light brown pencils have too much red. You will have many pencil brands to choose from and the less expensive the better in case you find you bought the wrong color. You will then need one of your mascara wands from your eyebrow dying session, a small sissor - one used to cut nails works fine, a small slant edged eye makeup brush and a mirror, preferably on the wall so your hands are free to work. First, brush your brows up with the mascara wand trim any hairs with your sissor that are excessivly long when brushed up and parallel to your temple. Then carefully with slow methodical study, look at your pictures and starting at the outside corner by your temple work inward tword your nose being careful to look at your picture periodically and see how the brows are shaped where your nose meets your forhead at the corner of your inner eye...do not take too much brow here look at the photo again see how the models brow is shaped. The only place to really go to town is the baby hairs on the flat plane of your nose between your eyes. But here again...watch where the brow ends on your groomed high styled brow of your ad model.

6.Filling in the Blanks - First take your pencil and starting at your brow end near your temple and working inwords tword your nose lightly and as if sketching with a charcol pencil brush in short back and forth sporadic but directional strokes against the grain of your eyebrow growth. This will make brow pencil blend in and look more natural and it leaves the brows slightly waxy so you can brush them in place and they will stay. Which is the next step: take your masacra wand and brush in short but fluid strokes brush your brows in the direction that they grow. Then take your flat slant eyemake-up brush and dip it into your matching shadow or brow powder and with short fluid strokes this time brush the powder in the direction of your brow growth dabbing more on any missed spots. This serves two purposes, one it keeps your pencil from wearing of and two it fills in any gaps. Once this is complete take your mascara wand and brush the brows into place in the direction of their growth and like magic your brows already look fabulous. Add some minimal neutral eyemake-up, mascara, some soft apricot blush and a little coral/pink or clear lip gloss and georgous you will glow!

Besides selling clothes on ebay I work as a part time graphic artist and am a successful make-up aritist and eyebrow stylist with a really trendy salon here in New Jersey. Even though I have had extensive training like in all endevors I have learned a lot through trial and error. Right now I am in the process of writing an e- book called "Motivational Beauty - You Don't Have to be Born Perfect You Just Have to Work at it!