Waaay before the Kardashians taught us to obsess over eyebrows on fleek, I had obsessed on Heart Evangelista's perfectly-shaped, perfectly-shaded, perfectly-done brows. Back in the day, eyebrows had to be THIN, ARCHED and PLUCKED TO EXTINCTION as seen on the most beautiful woman in the world, Angelina Jolie:
But Heart, the perfect creature that she is, dared to be different. I do not know if she's a makeup genius or her artists just thought her face and everything on it is perfect the way it is, it's probably a mix of both. I know she does her own makeup and I like that her artists respect her face and leave everything on it alone. Back then, I was in my teens and did not know much about eyebrows, and was left to thinking I will never have Heart Evangelista's perfect brows. Some people are just born with nice eyebrows, I thought. But because I knew that thin, arched, plucked-to-extinction brows will never suit my round, full, intimidating face, I never gave up on wishing on Eyebrow Fairies.
Now, thanks to Cara Delavingne and her "Power Brows" along with Hollywood beauties, Lily Collins and Camilla Belle, people now pay to have thick, dark even unruly brows:
K-pop invasion may also be blamed, as seen on beauty icons Song Hye Kyo and Han Ga In:
Let's pause for a moment of fan girl screaming. Isn't the world such a wonderful place? There's too much beauty I feel like crying. The Lord is indeed wonderful, isn't He?
Last na. Haha. The mother of all thick, gorgeous brows, Audrey Hepburn:
Heart is a fan of Audrey so, I'm guessing she got her cue from her. Oh lovely brows.
I know some men are appalled by thick brows as they CAN seem manly especially on the wrong face. Or when they're overdone, something that's VERY easy to do. Hah. I remember about 5 years ago when I used to bleach my brows and then draw a light gray-blonde shade and was too scared to overdo them because there's a woman in my church, she's in her mid-30s who does her brows too dark and it gave her such a stark, intense, heavy aura. I'm pretty sure I am now that woman that younger girls warn themselves not to be like. Eyebrows can be addictive. I need to go back to bleaching. (I was once mistaken to have Spanish blood because my eyebrows were blonde! That's probably why I stopped bleaching. Or I probably just got lazy.)
Anyway, since this is part 4 of the Donna B Makeup Workshop series, I'll stop fan girling and go back to reviewing the workshop. Sorry, I had too much fun looking at pictures of pretty women and their pretty eyebrows. (Girls are just too pretty!!!)
So yeah. Ms. Donna, she's from the traditional school of eyebrow artistry, which means she's still so much into shaving, plucking and arching brows even when thick, natural brows look better on the client's face. This, I totally dislike, but I totally understand because it's how things have always been taught. Since I disagree with her ideas, I shall not post them, as a way of rebelling against the norm of makeup artists. Clue: this is how it should ALWAYS be done, regardless of the client's face:
Prom and pageant gays (no, they are not offended by this collective term) are so keen on overplucking, overcutting and overshaving client's brows, to the point of erasing them completely AND THEN painting this template on. It's an insult to the art of makeup. As Ms. Donna said, the purpose of makeup is to bring out the best in clients' faces, not to paint a better one on top of their the face they already have.
Ms. Donna also discussed the importance of NOT following the advice of YouTube gurus. Popular YouTube makeup artists tend to be from the West and therefore have Western faces. The problem lies here - these are the typical Filipina faces (albeit they're from the attractive range):
In Filipino standards, these girls are "pretty" with "matangos" or high-bridged noses. Filipinos tend to focus on just the presence of a bridge in judging the prettiness of the nose. They ignore the size, shape, proportionality of the nose, especially in relation to the brows, eyes and the rest of the face. Now, if we are to follow the advice of YouTube gurus, which is to begin the inner brows at the sides of the nose, as we can see here:
This is what we get for Julie Anne San Jose, Maine Mendoza, and Nadine Lustre:
As you can see, if we are to follow Western standards in drawing in brows, the brows will begin half an inch away from where they should, making the brows too far apart, giving what Ms. Donna calls, "alien eyebrows".
No.
The girl in the photo looks Singaporean/Vietnamese but her nose is exactly the nose we Filipinos tend to have. If we are to follow Western advice, which says that eyebrows should begin at the side of the nostril (or eyebrows need to be as wide as the nose!), you get eyebrows that are too far apart. Instead, this is the eyebrow rule we need to follow:
The difference?
Another eyebrow theory goes like this:
The idea is to shape your brows to soften sharp facial outline angles or sharpen a round facial shape or lengthen a short face or shorten a long face. The trouble with this is that in hopes of distracting the viewer from facial shape "flaws", the eyebrows become the end-all be-all of makeup, completely ignoring other facial features, which to me are more important than the face shape. For example, in hopes of giving angles to a round face, an artist draws sharp, overly-arched brows, the brows look good, but then you look at the rest of the face and the the sharp, overly-arched brows emphasized the client's sharp, hooked nose, and tiny, squinty eyes. In makeup as in life, it is never a good thing to focus on the negative!
My favorite lesson from Ms. Donna is this: Our goal as makeup artists is not to hide flaws or draw nose bridges and cheekbones where there is none. The goal is to bring out the good parts so well that that the bad parts are still there but the looker could care less about them.
Lastly, eyebrows on fleek don't look good on everyone. Good eyebrows should never be the focus of makeup, they are groomed and shaded only to harmonize the entire face. Harmony is key. I'll leave you with these reminders that you should maybe print and post by your bathroom mirror or wherever it is you do your plucking and shading:
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