The 10 Products the Strategist Beauty Team Uses on Their Brows
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I was ruminating on brows recently and noticed that for the first time in a long while, we, as a collective, don’t have a coherent brow trend. Sure, some people are trying to make thin brows happen, but we know better than that now. Then there’s the bleached-brow trend, which is mostly confined to Brooklyn. Now, everyone’s sort of in brow no-man’s-land, left to their own devices and routines. Curious if I was the only one seeing this, I convened my fellow Strategist beauty staffers to check in on their brow routines.
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We’re just letting our brows do their own thing
Crystal Martin: I don’t do anything with my brows anymore. I just let them do whatever they’re going to do. That’s been for quite some time. I’m not a tweezer. The last time I got my brows done was two years ago. I am considering letting someone touch my brows again. I don’t know what’s animating that, if it’s a broader thing.
Tembe Denton-Hurst: I am a creature of habit and so there’s only one person I let do my brows. Her name isMalikah. She did my brows for the first time when I was 20. I was working at Nordstrom in Garden City and she was a brow stylist at Anastasia Beverly Hills. I would get my eyebrows done with her after my shift. Then she went freelance and had a shop up in Harlem. It’s been almost two years since I’ve gotten them done. I would go to Malikah on a special occasion, but besides that, I’d rather use brow gel and brush them up.
Ashley Wolfgang:I’m also a creature of habit. I started doing my brows in 2016 when it was really trendy. I attached myself to Benefit’s eyebrow products. I’ve been using the Goof Proof pencil for ten years, maybe more. It makes it really easy to fill in my brows. I also get my brows waxed at Benefit. I don’t stick to a person there, it’s always someone different. Even when I lived in Chicago, I went to the Benefit store. They do your makeup after. It’s a nice experience. If you sign up for the brand-rewards program, you get a free wax for your birthday. I just go once a year for my free birthday wax.
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Krista Bennett DeMaio: I get them tweezed occasionally for the shape, but they kind of maintain themselves. It’s more about trying to get them to look thicker. I was tinting my brows for a while. The first day I had to hide because I looked crazy, like someone took a marker to my face. But by the second day they fade and look great.
TDH: Doesn’t it feel weird that there’s no brow trend right now? I feel in the early 2000s, thin brows were the look, then in 2016 it was very sculpted with concealer and dip brow, then Cara Delevingne–level bushy brows. Now, nothing. I’m curious about what happens next with brows. I think we’re moving toward where it’s like, just do what works for you. Maybe brow trends are not coming back.
CM: I feel like we can’t go too long without somebody being prescriptive. We’ll have our brow freedom for some amount of time but not too long.
TDH:Yeah, maybe it’s all about custom brows, kind of like personal style. There was the brow-mapping era, where they shape your brows using a guide, which I don’t know has fully gone away.
Brenley Goertzen:Yeah and even with brow mapping they all come out different. Every technician has their different style.
TDH:For sure. There’s been an uptick in professional services too, like grooming outside of waxing, which felt like the highest level just a decade ago. Now I think we’re willing to go further with tints and nanoblading and all that.
But we have experimented with some things …
KBD:I get a Botox brow lift. It makes a big difference. I feel like my eyelids look way heavier when I don’t have it.
BG:I get that too. It gives you some lift. Botox can feel so heavy on your forehead.
KBD:I also did nanoblading almost two years ago. I am really due for a fill in. Nanoblading is finer strokes than microblading. It’s less trauma to the brow. I was watching this girl on Instagram for a long time. Her work is so natural. I really liked it. I didn’t pay for it, but it’s around $800. For the fill-in, if it’s within the first year it’s $100, if it’s two years, $200. I was very conservative with how much I let her do. She did a little shading like in the arch and then strokes in the front of the brow. When it healed, I couldn’t tell the difference between my real hair and the makeup. I think it’s good that I waited too long for the fill-in because I could see that it didn’t fade to a weird color. I’m always like,What happens when I’m like 80 and I don’t want to do these things anymore? Am I going to have green or gray brows?
BG:I tried to do lamination. I actually saw my brows turn the color of the chemical they use. I did that once or twice and I was too scared because I felt it affected the thickness of my brows.
… And are still using products to groom
TDH:I’m reluctant to do any of that because I like my brows as is, I just want them to look a little more sculpted. I do think there’s a lot of products that help to maintain and get a tinted look or a fuller-looking brow. What is everyone using? I use the thin Benefit Brow Pencil. It’s good for hairlike strokes. I alternate between that one and then the Anastasia Beverly Hills one. I also use Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Freeze religiously. That’s my long-running one. I sometimes use Refy Brow Sculpt, which gives me this soft, bushy-looking hold.
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BG: I used to use Refy, but I felt I would always get makeup in my brows. Maybe I was applying in the wrong order. I stopped using that and switched to Rare Beauty Brow Gel. Sometimes I’ll put Aquaphor on a spoolie. That’s what I use when I don’t want to wear makeup. I always buy brow oil from the threader I went to in New York. Her studio is called Brow Bandit. Her name is Aisha. I swear by her, so I buy hers. Obagi also has a brow-enhancing serum. I don’t need to use it, but I do because I love big brows.
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Arielle Avila: I use the NYX Micro Brow Pencil. That’s my go-to. Like I always have one on me. I’ve tried tints as well and have gone on and off with those. If I know I’m going to be at the beach or surfing I’ll do that so I don’t have to fill in, but there’s some product there.
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KBD: I use Deck of Scarlet. I have a brow kit from them. It has the white soap, powder, and an angled brush. It also has a pencil, but I usually just use the powder with the angled brush. Then I brush it up with the soap stuff.
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CM: I should use a gel, but I haven’t used one for months and months. I used to use Kulfi Brow Gel and I really liked it, but then I ran out. I have the Laura Geller eyebrow pencil. I’m just filling mine in and brushing them up.
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AW: Same with me. I haven’t used a gel in a really long time. I was either using one from Benefit or the Glossier one and once it ran out years ago, I never repurchased.
KBD: I used to use Benefit Gimme Brow, the one with the little fibers.
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AA: I’ve been using the Twenty/Twenty brow gel. It is supposed to have good for you brow ingredients. It makes me feel like I’m using a serum and a brow gel at once.
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CM:I put Latisse in my eyebrows. It definitely works for my lashes, I think potentially it might work for brows but I’m not sure. They’re not thinning at least.
TDH:I’m bad at sticking to any routine. With my eyebrows, even if I wanted to grow them, I can’t commit to doingcastor oilat night or whatever people use to get them thicker. By the time I try to be aggressive, it would probably be too late. I haven’t taken any preventive measures.
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BG: I went through a phase where I kept finding brow hairs on my hand after I’d washed my face. I was like,Oh my gosh, like what’s going on?That’s when I started using Obagi.
TDH:I experienced that when I first started using the Refy brow gel. I would wash my face and use cotton pads to try to get it out and noticed I was losing brow hairs.
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BG: I was also using Refy around the same time I started freaking out about losing hairs. That’s when I was like I’m going to go hardcore with like brow oil. Now I do it once a week, not so much every single night but I was for a while.
KBD: I’ve used Brow Code. You mix the colors to make your perfect color and then you brush it on and leave it for ten minutes. It does work. It doesn’t last as long as a professional tint, but I actually liked it because I could control it better. Every time I went to a professional, they’d be like, “Oh my God, it looks so good,” and I’d walk out and look like Groucho Marx with black Sharpie brows. I felt like I could control the tint a little bit more doing it myself. A lot of salons also use the Brow Code professional line.
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AA: I’ve used Wonderskin’s brow tint. It lasts for two days which is kind of nice if I don’t want to fill in my brows for a little bit. But it’s definitely not long-term tinting.
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The future is (possibly) more high maintenance
TDH: Has everyone started making future brow plans? I want to bleach mine, but I’m too old for that now, I think my brows may not grow back if I damage them. And I can’t do thosefaux-bleach sticks, I don’t want to be a poser. I may track Malikah down and see if she can rebalance them.
CM: I think I might want to do gel again, something to lock them in or fluff them out.
KBM: Maybe I’ll go back for nanoblading.
CM:Maybe we all want to do more because it’s summer. We want to look good.
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