The curse of having wonky eyebrows
Uneven brows get worse as you age — now there’s a cunning way to straighten them
Lying on a plastic, avocado-green couch in a basement room in London’s Covent garden, i take a couple of deep, steadying breaths.
At 46, i’m doing what i swore i never would. i’m getting a tattoo — and i’m absolutely petrified.
Worse still, it’s on my face. it might sound drastic, but i’m desperate: my eyebrows have never looked thinner or weedier. i’m taking the bold step of getting a new pair tattooed on and i’m beginning to question my sanity.
The problem is i’m sick of looking in the mirror and seeing anaemic brows that fade into the background, making my face appear sallow and aged.
Plus, ‘statement’ brows have never been more popular. Everyone from Cara Delevingne to the Duchess of Cambridge has beautifully tended, bold eyebrows — and their cache is sky-high.
Mine, very definitely, are letting me down. i started plucking them in my teens, but on hitting 40, i realised i might need a little more help and resorted to waxing and threading.
Lately, as little bald patches have developed, i’ve felt that even the professionals have struggled to get a decent shape. What’s more, a slight asymmetry between my brows — my left one is lower than my right — has become more pronounced, pulling my face downwards and emphasising the droopiness around my eyes.
Things came to a head when my friend Jackie brought me a brow grooming kit for my birthday. ‘We all need a bit of help as we get older,’ she said with a half-laugh.
So i’m hoping a new treatment by Browhaus can help. Unlike other tattoo techniques it uses a thin needle, which — crucially — doesn’t vibrate.
This allows far greater precision: weaving in and meshing the flicks of dye with your own hair.
Browhaus has also developed a system to measure the brow and perfectly align it to your face. The result is supposedly an on-point brow that even mathematicians couldn’t better. it could be just what i need.
Celebrity make-up artist Oonagh Connor agrees my brows are ageing.
‘Having very thin eyebrows looks terribly old-fashioned and adds years to your face,’ she says. ‘A good, strong brow frames the face and gives structure and definition.’
As we age, asymmetry becomes more pronounced. This, says Oonagh, is a dead giveaway of middle age. Priya Kerai, senior technician at Browhaus, adds: ‘As we get older, we lose hair from our brows. We also lose colour and definition.’
Browhaus, as the name suggests, specialises in all things eyebrow-related. it has only one salon in Britain — in London — with others worldwide. i am hoping it can find a solution to my wonky brows, so i book a full brow makeover, for £550.
After a half-hour consultation, Priya tells me my main problem is asymmetry. ‘Having asymmetrical brows isn’t uncommon. it’s because we use one side of our face more than the other,’ she says. ‘you’ve spent more than 40 years raising your right brow more than the left.’
She suggests raising my left arch slightly and elongating my brows, plus slightly darkening them.
Unlike other brow bars, Browhaus uses a small hand-held tool to paint on each individual hair.
‘normally, if you get your brows tattooed on, the therapist will use an electronic tool and will paint on the brow in a thick block,’ says Priya. Her technique is far more exact. The first step is for Priya to create a shape to compliment my face. She does this with a brow shaver — a tiny blade inserted in a little pen.
i can’t see what she’s doing, but i can feel a thin scrape and it’s disconcerting. She is creating a softer arch and removing excess hair. She doesn’t pluck because that would open up my pores, and she doesn’t want colour to leak in.
Despite Priya’s calm exterior and her rather lovely brows, i’m terrified. Suppose i end up looking like groucho Marx or Coleen Rooney?
it’s also crucial Priya gets it right, since it lasts for two years. Thankfully, she draws on my brows with a pencil and only proceeds to the real thing when i’m happy.
When Priya holds up the mirror, my brows are thick, dark and unnatural — like two caterpillars. There’s no way i want to look like that for two years.
‘i don’t like it. it needs to be much subtler,’ i say. Priya takes it like a trouper and sets to work again. Second time around i’m much happier. Priya has evened out the asymmetry, and the effect is youthful and groomed.
Then i remember what comes next, and feel the sort of terror i’ve only felt once before, when i was about to have a forceps delivery.
Back then, i knew i was going to have a beautiful baby at the end of it. This time i’m hoping for a beautiful pair of eyebrows. i wonder if i’m having a mid-life crisis. The needle is tiny and, thanks to a numbing cream, i feel only a faint pricking. Threading is more painful.
Priya dips the needle into a vegetable-based dye then works her way across each brow, painting in hair where i’ve lost it.
One of the key signs of ageing is a shorter eyebrow, so Priya elongates mine — edging out subtly towards my temples.
The needle penetrates to the second layer of skin — traditional tattooing reaches the third.
i’m assured the colour will fade, meshing with my natural tint. i won’t be wandering around with obvious regrowth. There are seven colours to choose from. i’ve gone for ash blonde. The golden rule is to go one shade darker than your natural colour.
Twenty terrifying minutes later, i’m done. i can hardly bear to look in the mirror, but when i do i’m delighted. i really do look younger. Best of all, Priya has worked wonders on my drooping left brow. it’s still slightly lower than my right, but now my brows are better aligned, my face is lifted.
in fact, when i meet my friend Mandy for lunch, she asks whether i’ve had Botox. i can tell she doesn’t believe me when i insist i haven’t.
For the first couple of days, my eyebrows feel sensitive, but by the third day i only remember i’ve had a tattoo when i glance in the mirror.
not a beauty treatment for the faint-hearted, but a needle that’s well worth the jabs.