If you have naturally bushy eyebrows, congratulations: For several seasons now, the beauty world has been your oyster. Model Melanie Culley arrived on set with an enviably thick set of brows, but for our beauty shoot, celebrity makeup artist Hung Vanngo showed us how to effortlessly thicken and extend them, to finesse an already-good brow into a great one.
Step 1: Vanngo starts at the base of the brow. Although most beauty-brow advice suggests that you draw in the direction of the hair, if you have naturally bushy brows, you don’t have to be quite as delicate about thickening and filling in gaps. As seen here, Vanngo uses CK One’s Brow Pencil & Gel Duo, moving in a perpendicular motion to the brow.
Step 2: Culley’s brows are great but could be extended a little to look even fuller. To make them longer, Hung draws short strokes, mimicking the length and direction of the hair growth. The tail end of your brows should reach just to the outer corner of your eye, so that you could take a pencil lengthwise and connect the tail end of your brow to the outer corner of your eye.
Step 3: For the middle portion of the brow, Vanngo draws in the opposite direction of the hair and then back again. I had never seen this done before, but Vanngo explained that it helps to get the color into the root of the brow while still looking organic.
Step 4: Use shorter, smaller strokes at the very tail end of the brow to create a light, feathered effect.
Step 5: Don’t forget to continue brushing the brows as you draw to get a better sense of their shape.
Step 6: Before and after! The right brow is what Melanie walked in with; the left brow is the more-polished final look.