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With Nowhere to Go, I Used Quarantine (and This Serum) to Get Bushier Eyebrows

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It’s universally understood by now that living and working at home while quarantining with your kids is a pretty tall order. But what I didn’t expect to happen while stuck inside trying to juggle my life, my husband’s, and our three daughters (a 6-year-old and 4-year-old twins) was that there would be time for self-discovery and growth. My husband and I, for example, got pretty serious about teaching our girls — something neither of us has ever done professionally — while also tending to our own jobs, including my new business, Super Smalls, a kids’ jewelry and accessories brand that needed some major TLC. For the sake of our kids and our own sanity, we discovered it best to approach our reality with a bit of a silly slant — we turn things into games, we all play dress-up in Super Smalls jewelry (even Daddy!) — which, looking back, has helped our cooped-up family grow even closer.

While I may not have immediately seen quarantine as an opportunity to grow as parents or a family, I did see the prospect of living behind closed doors for who-knows-how-long as an opportunity for personal growth of a different sort: namely, that of my eyebrows. Like many people, I am guilty of over-plucking and mistreating them in my younger days, and for years have longed to let my brows grow back into a fuller, more natural state. But that process always meant a lengthy, unruly stray-hair period that I just could never commit to back when I left the house for more than the occasional errand. Before starting my business, I worked as a fashion and beauty editor and watched as thicker, fuller eyebrows came back into style. As the interest in bold brows became more widespread, so too did products promising them, including RevitaBrow, a name I kept hearing people talk about in the hallways of Elle. Still, no matter how often people told me it had helped them, I was afraid to take the leap. My trusty eyebrow pencil was just way more comfortable than the idea of slow, unruly growth.

Last year, on the set of a Super Smalls shoot, I lamented once again about my lackluster brows to the makeup artist, who practically blurted out her professional opinion on the matter before I could finish my complaint. “Buy RevitaBrow immediately — the big bottle — and don’t be shy when you apply it, every night.” It was her conviction I remembered when I finally went and purchased the product a month into quarantine. As the makeup artist suggested, I bought the big bottle, which I began to apply every night.

I didn’t just take the her advice blindly, though — I did some research, too. I should note that, like other brow-restoring products, RevitaBrow doesn’t actually promise to grow eyebrows, but rather “condition and strengthen” them “while improving flexibility and shine.” And eyebrow growth is like hair growth: It’s cyclical and uneven and takes lots of time. According to the brand, if applied daily, the product should start showing effects immediately. But I’ll admit, the first few days it just looked like I had applied some eyebrow gel. Then, after the first week (or was it week two?), I noticed my brows started to look a little bushier, like I had used a bit of brown mascara on them or like the hairs were a little plump with water. I developed a routine — wash face, apply RevitaBrow, moisturize — and continued with my daily use for five months straight. When my first bottle ran out after three and a half months — I’m not shy when I apply — I bought another, buoyed by how my brows had a little more oomph every couple of weeks. They now appear thicker, but it’s their luscious, healthy feel that is more noticeable to me. Sure, I still use a pencil to even out some spots — but I know plenty of people blessed with naturally bushy brows that do the same.

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I Used Quarantine (and This Serum) to Get Bushier Eyebrows