6 Experts Share Their Best At-Home Brow Maintenance Tips and Tricks

Personally, I’ve never spent too much time thinking about my brows. This isn’t to say I haven’t tried waxing, threading, and tinting them like so many others, because I have, but I never thought much about how they looked beyond regular maintenance. That is, until stay at home orders happened and professional brow maintenance wasn’t really an option. Though I have my own at-home brow maintenance solutions, I recently became curious about what other people are doing to their brows. Of course, nothing says you have to do anything about your brows at all. If you want to, let those bad boys grow wild—hey, maybe it’ll be much needed growth if you’re prone to over-plucking or had a DIY waxing mishap. But if you are looking for some at-home brow maintenance tips and tricks, I spoke to some people (and many professionals) who have some suggestions.

If you’re considering taking some wax or tweezers to your own brows for the first time, though, there’s one thing you should know first. Josh Beeler, a brow specialist at Shen Beauty, says that his best advice for at-home brow care is to keep it minimal.

“I think the biggest mistake people make when trying to take care of their brows at home is over tweezing. Many people try to create perfect brow symmetry, but no one’s brows are perfectly symmetrical,” Beeler says. “What ultimately happens is you’ll continue to remove hair, trying to get them even, and by the time you’ve finished, your brows have become very thin.”

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Use A Brow Wax

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Jas Imani is a lash and brow expert and founder of Jas Imani Beauty and says her go-to brow maintenance tip doesn’t have to do with hair removal at all, actually. “Use a brow wax such as Soap Brows and a dry spoolie. I recommend everyone to use this to style their brows to help hold off on over tweezing or trimming. A brow wax can give a more styled look to a messy brow and has great hold without leaving a residue,” Imani says.

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Moisturize Your Brows

Michelle Wu is Master Therapist at Evertrue Microblading Salon and has her brows micro-bladed herself (as many people do). While this means brow maintenance may be less than a natural brow, Wu notes she still uses a small slanted tweezer to “carefully” remove stray hairs. She also says she moisturizers her brows. “I also always moisturize the skin underneath my brow hairs so it doesn’t get flakey — most people don’t think to do this but it is important. I just use whatever facial moisturizer I’m using at the moment (right now it’s Ghost Democracy Lightweight Daily Moisturizer) and just make sure there is nothing left on the brow hairs when I’m done applying.”

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Don’t Touch The Shape Of Your Brows

As tempting as it may be to do a DIY brow overhaul, Beeler says that you should leave adjusting the shape of the brow to the professionals. Removing an “errant hair” or two yourself is fine, but anything beyond that could lead to disaster. “In terms of DIY, at-home brow treatments, I would never recommend waxing by yourself—just don’t do it," Beeler explains. Also, if you're in NYC, Beeler will deliver a custom-made, at-home eyebrow tinting kit.

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Use Slant-Tipped Tweezers

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Anastasia Soare, founder and chief executive of Anastasia Beverly Hills, says that if you do tweeze, consider using a slant-tipped tweezer to “avoid breaking off the hair close to the base and causing unnecessary pain.” Soare also says to get “close to the base and always tweeze in the direction of hair growth” and suggest using a toner or aloe vera after tweezing to sooth close to poores.

And whatever you do: Don’t over tweeze, Soare says. “Be especially careful of tweezing too much in-between your brows or underneath. People think they’re creating a higher arch or opening up their eye, but they’re just shortening the arch and destroying the shape of the brow,” Soare explains.

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Consider Using Brow Scissors

If tweezing just isn’t your thing, though, Soare says that brow scissors can be a good alternative. “I recommend filling in your brows for this technique as well,” Soare explains. “Brush your brow hairs up, cutting only what falls outside the filled area, then brush the brow hairs down and repeat.

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Use A Pencil As A Guide

If you decide to tweeze but want to be as cautious as possible, celebrity makeup artist Jillian Dempsey suggests using a pencil as a guide at the bridge of the nose to avoid tweezing too far in. “I also love the Giorgio Armani Eyes to Kill Eye & Brow Maestro Applicator/Shaper,” Dempsey says. “You can use this when you need to brush through your brows or apply powder to fill in any gaps.”

If you’re overwhelmed by any of the above tips or products, Dempsey also suggest checking out the tutorials and guides available on her new beauty app FYFE. These will walk you through all of the above, step by step.