The big eyebrow guide

From lamination to microblading and even eyebrow transplants, Sonia Haria has the low-down on everything you need to know for over-plucked brows

The nineties have a lot to answer for: not least, making overplucked, pencil-thin eyebrows a thing. Thirty years on, it is mainly midlifers – the teenagers of the eighties and nineties – who are trying to get their brows back to their bushy glory days. It’s a demanding task.

It’s no surprise, then, that thousands of us are booking in every year for brow shapes and tints. That’s at the very minimum. Lots of us are booking in for microblading, too: a treatment that semipermanently tattoos brow-like hairs on the skin and lasts up to two years. And for the ultimate over-plucker? There are even eyebrow transplants. More on that later.

But whichever treatment is right for you, natural-looking brows are here to stay. “Your brows say a lot about you, and for many of us, we just want a naturally-groomed look,” says Vanita Parti, the founder of Blink Brow Bars. “Tinting immediately gives patchy or slightly greying brows some depth and colour, and a good eyebrow shape with threading or waxing can actually give the illusion of fuller brows,” she explains. While a shape and tint is the bread and butter service at Parti’s popular brow bars, there is a new treatment, “lamination”, which has been hugely popular over the past year. It involves chemically straightening the eyebrow hairs so they lie flat, giving the impression of wider brows.

Although it started out as a Gen Z trend for young twenty-somethings who wanted even more full, fluffy-looking brows (mildly annoying), Parti has found the treatment a surprising success for the over-40s. The reason? It can tame coarse or unruly brows – textures which can develop as we age – and will fix them in place for around six weeks. Not bad for a treatment that costs £55. However, if you feel like you need more of a permanent fix for over-plucked brows, here are two other treatments you can try.

“A lot of my clients over-plucked their brows in the eighties and nineties and have been trying to grow them back ever since,” she says. “Brows naturally thin with age, too, so microblading is a great semipermanent solution.” The treatment involves tiny hair-like strokes in a natural-looking colour – often not far off the shade you’d pick in an eyebrow pencil – creating a fuller and wider shape, often based on pictures of themselves when they were younger (pre over-plucking). “I always suggest clients go for a very natural look as that will ultimately be the most flattering for their face shape,” she adds. After your initial appointment, you go back in for a top-up after four to eight weeks. The treatment lasts around 18 months to two years. Vaghela sees dozens of new clients every week, which also often includes cancer patients in recovery. As long as you find a therapist with plenty of before and after case studies, and good recommendations, microblading can be a complete game changer.

As eyebrow hairs sit in a herringbone pattern, and are unlikely to naturally lie in the same direction, follicles are individually implanted at specific angles that take into account the direction of hair growth. It is midlife women who are mostly booking in for Farjo’s soughtafter treatment, which costs £4,000. “It’s for the women who want permanently fuller eyebrows in a 3D effect, which microblading can’t achieve,” he explains. A typical procedure involves 400 transplanted follicles on each brow and takes up to four hours to complete. Once the new follicles have settled in around the eyebrows, it can take up to six months for the hair to begin growing outside of the skin. Because the follicle has come from the scalp, it grows at a faster rate than your natural brow hairs. “You will likely have to trim your eyebrows every couple of weeks,” says Farjo. As Teigen remarked on Instagram a while after having her transplant: “They’re growing like weeds.”