Bettering your brows doesn’t have to start and end with infinite makeup products each morning. Recently, more and more people have been turning to semipermanent options like microblading and brow tinting to get the fuller brow look without relying on pencils and powders to fill in those face-framers. Unfortunately, both brow tinting and microblading typically require a trip to the salon to get the results you want; however, one woman’s at-home brow experience might now prove otherwise.
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A woman from Texas has recently gone viral for her at-home eyebrow tinting technique that went startlingly well for someone with no professional cosmetics background. Gabriella Robles, 16, posted a play-by-play of her experience on Twitter this past summer. “So I dyed my own brows today and boy was I scared but yolo am I right ladiessss,” Robles tweeted, later adding a mini tutorial for followers to try for themselves.
So I dyed my own brows today and boy was I scared but yolo am I right ladiessss pic.twitter.com/AQ4x1cXwlf
— Gabs (@Gabbi484) July 20, 2017
According to Robles, she began the process by cleaning her brows, as well as the skin surrounding them, with alcohol. Then, she applied white oil paint with a small brush around the outline of her brows to distinguish her preferred brow shape and prevent any dye from staining her skin. Finally, Robles applied Just For Men Mustache and Beard Hair Color ($8) onto her brows, waited for the dye to set, and then washed off the dye and paint with soap and water.
After seeing Robles’ awesome results, quite a few of her followers decided to give her technique a try too—with varying results.
The good:
got my clout up ??☺️????? pic.twitter.com/HHJRd4eZ9a
— cornelia? (@vm_dxs) July 26, 2017
I love the way you do it!! I always use henna but its almost the same i guess haha pic.twitter.com/jtt8AvoG5n
— nadia (@fondingharry) July 21, 2017
And the not-so-good:
when u forget Vaseline pic.twitter.com/YZrswpJTHn
— m a l (@_itsmal) September 4, 2017
While it’s generally not advisable to do beauty treatments like this at home (as seen by the unfortunate incident above), celebrity brow specialist Kelley Baker says this woman did a pretty great job on herself, except for one minor mistake. “I’ve never heard of using white oil paint when tinting your brows,” explains Baker. “I’ve always used Vaseline to protect the skin from getting stained.”
Additionally, Baker warns that even though this woman’s brows turned out pretty well, it’s more common for the opposite to be true when doing eyebrow tinting at home. “So many things could go wrong if you tint your brows at home by yourself,” Baker explains. “For starters, it’s a messy project and if you don’t coat your skin correctly, you can stain it with the dye, which is very hard to get off, especially if you have dry skin.” Baker also says it can be difficult to color-match dye to your desired brow look, so when in doubt, leave this treatment to the pros.