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How To Fill In, Shape, Tweeze, Trim, And Transform Your Eyebrows

Brow down.

Augusta Falletta
by Augusta Falletta

BuzzFeed Staff

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Joey Healy is one of the foremost eyebrow specialists in New York. He knows that eyebrows are not "one size fits all."

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Photo

Healy's been transforming brows unique to each person for years. Here, he shares his best tips for making over your eyebrows depending on what state your eyebrows are in currently (over-tweezed, sparse, thick, unruly, asymmetrical, etc.).

Here are the tools he used:

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

1. Eyebrow Powder, for filling in thin or patchy spots.

2. Eyebrow Brush (with one angled powder brush and one spoolie brush), for applying powder and combing through hairs.

3. Eyebrow Scissors, for trimming long hairs

4. Tweezer, for tweezing stray hairs.

5. Eyebrow pencils (with a spoolie brush on the end), for correcting the shape of your brows and then filling them in.

6. Eyebrow serum, for growth.

7. Eyebrow highlighter, for underneath the arch of your eyebrow.

8. Clear eyebrow gel, for keeping your eyebrow hairs in place once you've groomed them.

Not pictured: Eyebrow razor, or a dermaplaning tool, used for getting rid of extra hair on the face around the eyebrows.

First, use a tweezer (or an eyebrow pencil) and line it up against your face to map out where your eyebrow should begin and end on your face.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Step 1: Hold the tweezer vertically from the outermost part of your nostril straight up to your eyebrow. The place where the tweezer hits is where the head (or innermost part) of your eyebrow should begin.

Step 2: Hold the tweezer horizontally at the top of each brow to make sure they're at the same height. If they don't match up, you can fill in the lower eyebrow to match the higher one.

Step 3: Hold the tweezer diagonally from the outermost part of your nostril to the outermost part of your eye. Where the tweezer extends past your eye is where the tail (or outermost part) of your eyebrow should end.

For thinner eyebrows, follow these guidelines for filling in with a pencil. If you prefer to use an eyebrow brush and powder, the same guidelines apply.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Step 1: Using a pencil that is about one shade lighter than your natural eyebrow color, gently fill in the head of your eyebrow (at the head spot you found while mapping out your eyebrows). Use light, short strokes to mimic your natural eyebrow hairs.

Step 2: Moving past the head, begin gently filling in the body of your eyebrow. This part is typically the most dense, so focus on just filling in sparse areas with pencil so you don't overdraw.

Step 3: Fill in the tail of your eyebrows and extend out past the outermost corner of your eye (to tail spot you found while mapping out your eyebrows).

Step 4: Use a spoolie brush to brush through both eyebrows. This will blend in the pencil with your hairs to everything look uniform and natural.

Step 5: Smile! Your eyebrows look great.

If your eyebrows are thin or sparse, you can apply a daily eyebrow serum to help them grow.

And for thick eyebrows, focus on grooming hairs around your natural brow.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Step 1: Tweeze below your natural brow by plucking out hairs, moving against the grain.

Step 2: Tweeze above your brow to remove any thick, stray hairs above your arch.

Step 3: If you need to, use an eyebrow razor from the side of your hairline to just above the top of your eyebrow to remove any thin, excess hair on your temples.

Step 4: If you need to, use the eyebrow razor from the top of your forehead to above the head of your eyebrow, removing excess facial hair on your forehead.

To keep thick eyebrows in place all day, you can use a clear eyebrow gel.

Now, for the specifics. The eyebrow type you have will determine your grooming details.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Once you determine your eyebrow shape, follow the tips for your brows below.

For over-tweezed eyebrows: Focus on filling in sparse areas and getting rid of stray hairs.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Photo / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Tools You'll Need:

- Tweezer

- Eyebrow Pencil

- Duo Eyebrow Brush

Joey explained that to make over-tweezed eyebrows symmetrical, it's all about addition and subtraction: Add to the sparse areas (the tail and the head) with a brow pencil and subtract the stray hairs (under the brow bone) with a tweezer. "Sometimes, eyebrows can look like Hawaii when they should actually like California," he said. Once the brows were filled in with pencil, he combed through them with the spoolie brush to blend everything together and make them look natural.

The result:

Lauren Zaser / Via BuzzFeed Life

“I didn’t touch my eyebrows for a couple weeks before this. The difference seems dramatic but I like them. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to fill in my eyebrows every day the way that Joey did (I’m lazy and also am pretty sure I’d mess it up if I was sleepy in the morning) but I’m definitely going to experiment more with it,” said Chelsea (above).

For those with a smaller forehead: Focus on maximizing the space between your eyebrows and your hairline.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Tools You'll Need:

- Tweezer

- Eyebrow razor

- Eyebrow brush and powder

Joey tweezed above her eyebrows to maximize the space between her eyebrow and her hairline, which made her small forehead appear larger and opened up her face. Her eyebrows were thicker at the head and thinner at the tail, so Joey filled in her tails with powder and a brush to balance out the proportions.

The result:

Lauren Zaser / Via BuzzFeed Life

“I used to get my eyebrows waxed every couple weeks, but in the past few years I’ve taken to tweezing and maintaining them myself. It was good to see how much and where Joey filled them in, because I always just kind of wing it. And it was surprising to hear that he wanted to ‘maximize my forehead’ by tweezing above my brows because I didn’t even know that was a thing (though I DID know I have a tiny little forehead),” said Arianna (above).

For patchy eyebrows: Focus on uniform density.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Tools You'll Need:

- Tweezer

- Eyebrow brush

- Powder

Eyebrows don't always grow in with the same thickness throughout. Joey first tweezed stray hairs around the main brow shape. He then suggested focusing on where the brows were naturally the most dense (in this case, at the center), then filling in the patchy parts (the head and the tail) with powder and a brush so the entire eyebrow was consistently thick.

The result:

Lauren Zaser / Via BuzzFeed Life

“I’ve never gotten my eyebrows done before. The results to me don’t look drastic — it’s pretty subtle small changes. As someone who doesn’t wear makeup or put a lot of thought into how my eyebrows look, it was fun to take time to indulge that side of myself that I rarely pay attention to,” said Cates (above).

For eyebrows that are already thick: Focus on cleaning up around the brow itself.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Photo / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Tools You'll Need:

- Tweezer

- Eyebrow razor

Joey groomed around Heben’s brows (above) to keep her them the main focal point of her face. He used a eyebrow razor above her brow to take away any baby hairs on her forehead, then used a tweezer to remove other stray hairs along her temple and above the arch of her brow.

The result:

Lauren Zaser / Via BuzzFeed Life

“Joey mostly focused on creating a crisp, clean look. He respected the thickness of my brows (now that thick brows are ‘in’ because of white girls like Cara Delevingne *insert brown girl eye-roll here*) and worked with their natural arch to create a better look,” said Heben.

For eyebrows with no arch: Focus on using a highlighter and a pencil to create the appearance of an arch.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Tools You'll Need:

- Eyebrow powder

- Eyebrow brush

- Eyebrow highlighter

- Tweezer

To accentuate the arch, Joey tweezed on an angle above Conz's eyebrows (above), leaving the hairs at the highest point of her arch and tweezing diagonally down from the arch to the tail. Next, he used powder and a brush to make the arch more dense. Then he applied a dot of highlighter just under the arch and blended it into the skin. This drew up the eye and made it appear more open.

The result:

Lauren Zaser / Via BuzzFeed Life

“I noticed that my eyebrows are popping out more and, in a weird way as a result, I see my face differently. They are darker and more visible than usual. I loved that he put some highlighter — is that what you even call it? — under my eyebrow to make it pop a little bit more. I love my eyebrows, I wanna show them off. I also love that the make over is so subtle that people are like, ‘You look soooo good, but your eyebrows look the same.’ It’s like, they are still my eyebrows but improved in a way that just makes my over all look better,” said Conz.

For unruly eyebrows: Focus on trimming really long hairs and tweezing underneath the head and the tail of the eyebrow.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Tools You'll Need:

- Eyebrow scissors

- Tweezers

- Eyebrow brush

Joey wanted to make Tanner's eyebrows (above) symmetrical and get rid of any "crazy or messy" hairs along the way. "Men's eyebrows don't need to be overly groomed," Joey said. Joey brushed Tanner's eyebrows up with the spoolie end of the eyebrow brush. He focused on trimming excessively long hairs so Tanner's eyebrows wouldn't look unkempt. To open up the eye, he tweezed hairs that were under the head of the eyebrow, plus any stray hairs along the temple.

The result:

Lauren Zaser / Via BuzzFeed Life

“This is the first time I’ve ever gotten my eyebrows done, and probably the last, ‘cause I’m incredibly lazy. That said, my eyebrows look bangin’ as hell right now. It’s pretty subtle. Joey said he didn’t want it to look like I had my eyebrows done, so they mostly just look much sharper and neater than before,” said Tanner.

For thick eyebrows that have "sprouts" at the head: Focus on filling in the head and cleaning up the tail.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Tools You'll Need:

- Tweezer

- Eyebrow powder

- Eyebrow brush

Mallory's eyebrows (above) had "sprouts," or very light, thin hairs at the head, and a more dense look at the center. Joey filled in her sparse areas for a bolder look overall. He tweezed any hairs beneath the tail of her brow for a cleaner look.

The result:

Lauren Zaser / Via BuzzFeed Life

“Sometimes I pluck my brows, but normally I just attack them with little nail scissors, getting as close as I can to the root. Yeah…probably not the most effective way to groom them and definitely not as effective (obviously) as what Joey does! I think they look great and I’ll definitely try to put my newfound brow knowledge to good use, especially when it comes to filling in the outer portions of my eyebrows where the hair thins out,” Mallory said.

For round eyebrows: Focus on using a pencil to create an arch further away from the center of the eyebrow.

Lauren Zaser for BuzzFeed Life / Via Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed Design

Tools You'll Need:

- Tweezer

- Eyebrow pencil

Erin's eyebrows (above) had an arch directly in their center, so Joey worked to move the arch over, which elongated her brow and opened up her eyes. He first tweezed stray hairs from underneath Erin's eyebrows, then he used a light pencil to create an arch two-thirds of the way from the head of the brow. He filled in the rest of the brow with pencil to blend it all together.

The result:

Lauren Zaser / Via BuzzFeed Life

“I gave Joey my pure, feathery, unplucked brows for this project and he handed me back twin masterpieces. One notable difference: My eyebrows didn’t look as ‘perfect’ as they do after threading but they looked more natural and full. You know, the Maybe-She’s-Born-With-It mystique,” said Erin.

All hail the brow master Joey Healy.

Lauren Zaser / Via BuzzFeed Life