I have something of a love/hate relationship with Buzzfeed, it is true. On the one hand their approach to viral content and attempts to make some of the world’s biggest bullshit into such does my head in, as does their jarring approach of having things like “ten of the most important kittens ever” lists lying side by side with first-person interviews and reports on topics such as abuse and sexual assault.
My logical brain hates the place, but the rest of me be all like:
Anyway, one thing that Buzzfeed HAS taught me of recent months is that I am not the only person out there with a seriously farfetched eyebrow obsession.
I’ve already covered how to give good eye, and also last month, the apparent “latest” craze in eyebrows: Slits. However, Buzzfeed has pissed on my bonfire yet again now, by proving to me that I’m just not down with the kidz enough to be able to keep up with what eyebrows are up to next… Which is colours. I tried to resist it, I really, really did.
But the thing is, coloured eyebrows are just so… Cool. There, I said it. Shoot me.
Anyway. I am a Goth and I want coloured eyebrows. Let’s go, bitches.
Whut?
Coloured eyebrows are genius, if you can get it right. Your two basic options are temporary or permanent, and if you’re not feeling over confident on the whole “getting it right” thing, I suggest you go for the former.
If you colour your hair an unnatural colour, as I do, you may be tempted to go for a more long-term look, as I am currently considering, despite knowing full well that it will only end badly. However, I am changing my hair colour next month, so stay tuned to find out if I bottle it or not.
Temporary colouring
Do the temporary ones. Let me experiment next month with the permanent (maybe) and come back with a cautionary tale.
To do a temporary look on your own, you’ll need some tools. What you use is up to you, but I would suggest arming yourself with at least two precision brow brushes, some cotton buds, cotton wool, and makeup remover. What you actually do the colour with can, I suspect, have a lot of options: I used a combination of eyeshadow, liquid eyeliner and mascara, all in pink.
I flat out could not find my neon pink eyeshadow, and so the colour result was more subtle than I had hoped for, but I now have hope of sussing the look when I do finally locate it. High-pigment offerings (ie, the pricier ones) are better.
I started with my natural eyebrows:
Lol, psyche! I mean, obvs I tweezed, brushed and shaded them to within an inch of their lives before I put a picture of them on the internet, but anyhoo, that is them basically plain. I use a little brown pencil on them at all times anyway as they are virtually white otherwise, but that’s my no-colour look.
Then, I outlined the top half of the inside (the side nearest your nose) of each brow, and the bottom half of the outside of each brow with the liquid liner to give me an arch, and then basically coloured the whole thing in with a precision brush and a rose pink shimmery shadow, while using a cotton bud to remove any epic fails.
That left me with this subtly dark pink look, that seemed to “pop” a bit more in the flesh, but was still pretty innocuous. I liked this, although the dark pink does not go with my currently pastel hair.
Finally, I got the neon-pink mascara and gave it all a good comb through, and used a soft white nail pencil to run a line around the lower borders and give them more defined edges, which made them pop a bit more, but still looked way more subtle than I had hoped/feared:
Also, my cat (Matilda) picked that moment to get in on the act.
End result:
Yeah I’m ok with this. Next time I will use a brighter, darker pink though. Still, I was surprised at how it wasn’t as much of a shitshow as I had suspected it would be… I know that I am still finger-painting in the toddler corner in comparison with the folks from the Buzzfeed piece, but for a first go, I’m happy enough.
Next time I hope to achieve something like this, but with the same colour on both sides, obvs… Or not!
