Ava and her brows.
I usually do my own brows (insomniac tweezing should be considered a treatable medical condition). I’m pretty good at it, so I never needed profesh attention. But I was chatting with a famous brow technician friend at a recent event, and…well, she sort of read my arches. This is our relationship. We’re lovingly catty. Last time I saw her, I called her way-too-baggy jeans “ex-boyfriend jeans.”
Famous Technician: Even though your brows are full, they’re feathery. Sort of sparse. So they can seem vague. Ever tried a brow tint? It’ll fill in all the spaces, giving you a bolder, more Ava Gardner sort of look.
Me: You’re so manipulative. You knew that if you mentioned Ava Gardner, I’d have to try it.
The Famous Technician was going on tour with a pop star for a month, so I booked a tint appointment at Lower Manhattan’s esteemed Boom Boom Brow Bar. It’s the cutest place. The inside of it looks like the boudoir of a 1950s showgirl (there’s actually a chandelier strewn with brightly colored bras).
I sat down with the owner, a curvy Long Island Italian bombshell named Malynda. She broke the whole process down for me, saying, “First of all, you need to stop tweezing. The reason you’re constantly plucking is because you have every hair on a different growth pattern, so they’re coming in at different times. If you wax every month at the same time, they’ll all be on the same cycle. You’ll have two week of clean brows, and one week where they’re growing in. Lightly.” I never thought about this!
“And a vegetable dye tint is perfect for someone like you, a mom with a busy career,” she continued. “Because, with no pencils or gels or filling-in, your arches will look perfect every day. Like you’ve had a makeup artist groom them every morning! And it fades away naturally, in a month or so.”
I was sold. The dye part was weird…
Here I am, letting the dye sit for ten minutes. I was terrified that, after she wiped it off, the shade would still be this dark. Cara Delevingne is hot, but I’m not her.
Guys, the results were truly stunning. I had no reason to be afraid. See:
The top pic was my natural brow. All unformed and, yes, VAGUE. The second pic was right after she washed off the dye. It was still a little strong; hadn’t settled yet. The last pic was an hour later. Snatched.
I’m such a dork for living my entire life without proper, professional brow maintenance. And now I will be tinting once a month. What I’m not going to do is a my mustache, which she was quite vocal about aching to remove (you can barely see it, goddamn!). If you want to try the look at home first, I’d suggest Perfekt Beauty Brow Perfection Gel, a smudge-resistant tinted gel that comes in mascara form. It fills-in so prettily, and doesn’t look weirdly artificial like other brow tints. Get into it!
xo,
Yo Mama