Raisa Flowers is known for her ‘90s thin brows. A few months ago, the makeup artist switched up her look from bleached brows to shaving it all off and marking skinny brows back on. “When I did it, I was like, ‘I’m going to have to come up with a new look,’” Flowers tells ESSENCE. “I really love the skinny brow look,” she adds. “I think it’s super timeless.” If it’s been a while since you’ve updated your eyebrow routine (or you were born after the 1990s) you may be in the market for new tips and tricks to maintain skinnier and more defined brows than before.
“I know people make a big deal out of it because it requires you to either shave your brows, pluck your brows, or do something transformative to your brows,” she says, unafraid to experiment with her appearance. Luckily, Flowers has the top industry-leading secrets – from shave-free thinning techniques to drawing over shaved brows – to get into the classic trending look. The freedom of drawing new shapes and moving her brow up and down “makes me be able to play with makeup more” she says, and here’s how she does it.
Below, the makeup artist lets ESSENCE in on all the tips and tricks to achieve the skinniest brows and her favorite products to do it with.
Drawing over shaved brows
After shaving your brows, finding the right shape for your brow bone is the first decision. “At first, it’s really difficult to figure out what kind of shape you want, because sometimes I want a pointy high arch skinny brow, but other times it becomes very low,” Flowers says. Using her most fine and precise eyebrow pencil (like the Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz®), the makeup artist follows the pen with the imprint of the hairs on her brow bone.
“I go to the front of my brows and I draw above my brow bone where my eyebrows used to be, and then I match them up,” she says. “Then, I’ll use concealer to clean them up to make them as fine as I want, and then foundation around the top to make them more defined and sharper.” On set, she may use other techniques like using powder and drawing the brow on with a brush, while other artists just freehand a straight brow without a technique. “But on myself, I use brow pencils to draw it slowly and execute the shape the way that I want it to.”
Thinning and filling natural brows
Like mine, your eyebrows may be naturally thin and fine, requiring only shaping or elongation techniques to achieve a skinnier, defined brow. “When you’re working inside your hair, I would take a really fine eyebrow pencil,” she says, recommending the Huda Beauty eyebrow pencil to create hair-like strokes. “I would guide myself with the strokes, and add them to the end of the eyebrows to create a longer eyebrow.”
“When I used to have skinnier straighter brows, I would take a brow pomade and I would fill in the ends of my brow without making hair-like strokes,” she says. “[The pomade is] something that can dry, and you’re able to use a brush to control it a little more,” before adding concealer for definition underneath.
Gluing and covering up natural hair
If you don’t want to commit to shaving, thinning, or plucking your natural brows, just glue your brows down and draw over them. “You can use Elmer’s glue stick and run it through your brows about three times, especially if you have thick brows,” she instructs, before combing up and sharply flattening them. “You have to basically glue your brows to your skin.” Then, press a loose translucent powder or skin-toned powder on top of the glue to remove the stickiness.
After that, “go on with a color corrector to correct your eyebrows,” she says. “Sometimes I go back in with powder again, the same powder that I used in the beginning, and then I would go over it with my foundation,” following with a pencil or powder to create a thin brow shape sans commitment. Pro tip: You can bleach your brows, slick your brows down and do that same step-by-step process without color corrector. Just draw the thin brow shape over the top of your natural brow hair.
Flowers’ product recommendations
