The Three Different Ways I Fill in My Brows & What I Use To Carve Them Out With!

For a long time, after getting into makeup, I neglected doing anything to my brows but about a year ago now I discovered that brows make a huge difference to your makeup. I find that my brows really frame my face and they even do little things like help me line my eye shadow up probably. Over the past year, I have found three different ways I fill in my brows, all of which give a different effect which I am going to get into but I just wanted to share this with you today as I know I mention them in my makeup looks but I wanted to explain it a little more so I hope you like it. As well as sharing the ways I fill in my brows, I am going to talk about some of my favourite products to carve out my brows with as well since that is another step I can't seem to skip.

I am going to start with my most dramatic way of filling in my brows which is with a pomade. Obviously, with this giving a dramatic finish, I don't use it day to day, but on a day that I am going to do an intense eye or I just want something really flawless, I use this. When I know I am going to be using a pomade for my brows, I will actually do it before anything else because I am quite messy with it and so I carve them out quite heavily and I find that more effective to do before my face and eye makeup.

The pomade I use is the Anastasia Beverly Hills Dip Brow Pomade in Taupe. For the colour, it is a perfect match, it is a little cool but it matches the roots of my hairs pretty well and that is what I tend to aim for when picking my brow product colour. 

I use the pomade with an angled small brush, my favourite being the Morphe M158 which also has a spoolie on the other end which I love. When starting to fill in my brows, I take a little bit of the pomade, just on the tip of my brush so that I don't go too heavy straight away and I just underline the bottom part of my brows. Weirdly, I do the tail first as that is where I like the most product to be and then as I get close to the front, there is less product on my brush as I only have to dip in once to underline my brows. After that, I will just take that spoolie on the other end of the brush but you can buy them seperately so don't worry about that, and then I will just brush the product up a little bit just to begin to blend the product out a little bit. My next focus will then just be on the tail of the brow which, like I said before, is where I like it to be the most intense. Taking more product on my brush, I will just outline the top of the tail and just fill it in with little strokes and blending it a little with the spoolie again. Without taking anymore product, I will start to run whatever is left on my brush just throughout the start of my brow. Whenever I make a mistake, I just blend it out with the spoolie and then I am able to clean it all up straight after.

With a pomade, now that I have learned, it is super easy for me to use and control. I can really manipulate where the product goes and how it looks with the brush and the product itself. A pomade personally, lasts the longest on me because it is like a gel, it almost sets on its own while powders and stuff need to be set with a gel. Like I said, I do only use this on intense makeup days, but you could just use less product for a more natural look, if you only wanted one product. Even though I like certain products for different intensities, any of these products can reach any part of that scale so don't feel like you need all of these, I just use each product for a particular effect.

Next up is my most quick and easy way of doing my brows and this is with a pencil. I only use this when I am in a rush or I am doing a sort of "no makeup" makeup look. This is the quickest way for me to do my brows which makes sense since it does give the most natural finish. If I was to wear makeup to school, this is what I would probably use and just anytime that I just want a little something on my brows that's super quick and natural.

The pencil is just the Elf Brow Pencil and mine is in the shade Taupe. I find that this is a really good shade for my brows as it is the ashy brown colour that is not too dark or too light. I also love that it features a spoolie on the other side because I just like to have one near by whenever I do my brows in case I go over board and need to do some blending. The packaging of this is great as well as it is a retractable pencil and sometimes I feel like I use a lot of product so being able to just twist up more product is great.

When I am using this, just use it quite messily. I directly apply it onto my brows, starting with the front of my brow and just using short strokes. Then, I start to run it through the tail of my brow a little more heavy handed just making sure I get quite a crisp line. Once again, I just use those strokes throughout the whole of my brow until I am happy with the look. Sometimes I find myself using a lot of product, giving quite a dark brow, and other times I just very lightly use it for a lighter look but either way, it is pretty natural.

This is probably the product I use the least just because if I do wear makeup then it is all or nothing so I like quite bold brows, saying that, I just like having this for a just in case situation. I like having something that I know I can just use super quickly and just throw in my bag, it is also a lot more travel convenient because you don't need a brush to pair it with.

The final way I fill in my brows is the perfect in between for the two I have already mentioned and that is with a powder. I like to use a powder when I am wearing a fair amount of makeup but I want to do my base first or I just can't be bothered using a pomade. Sometimes I find a pomade to be quite time consuming and just difficult to use, while I also prefer doing it before my base and eyes but with a powder, it is a little quicker and I like it with my base already done.

When using a powder, I can work with eye shadow but I do prefer my Freedom Duo Brow Powder in Soft Brown. This is great because it comes with two shades, the light one, I don't use as much as the darker one but I still play around with both. This is a really good colour for me, it is a little dark but with it being a powder you can build it or blend it for any sort of colour pay off. I find that this shade has such a great neutral undertone, even though my brows are quite cool in terms of it's undertone this just works really well with it.

Once again, I like to use this with the Morphe M158 as I just find angled brushes the best for filling in my eyebrows. I usually start off with the tail of my brow for a powder just so I can create a gradient as I get closer to the start of my brow. For the end of my brow, I just use the dark shade out of the duo and just using short strokes again with the brush and just filling in the sparse parts of my brows. I tend to do a lot of switching between actually applying the powder and blending the powder with the spoolie on the other side of the brush and just building that up until I am happy. As I get towards the front of my brows though, I like to start mixing in the lighter shade just to create a little gradient and once again, just switching between the brush and spoolie until I am happy with the way they are looking.

I love powder for my brows because it is so super easy to apply and even when it gets messy, it is super easy to just clean it up and start again. I love that you can build it up from something super light to something super bold, I feel like this product has the most range for intensities, at least it is for me. Just as long as I set it, which I will get into soon, I find that it lasts amazingly too. I definitely recommend powders the most to people just because they are great for beginners and experts, they are super easy to use and you can get some really great ones for a super affordable price like this Freedom one

Just some extra steps I take in my brow routine is what I am going to talk about next, starting with brow gel. Setting my brows is something I forget but it is so important when wanting my makeup to last all day. Depending on which of the three ways I fill my brows in will likely determine whether I set my brows or not. 9/10 of the times I set my brows no matter what I have used to fill them in with, but if I didn't wear gel it would be probably because I am wearing a pomade and that sets itself so even though setting that is not essential, I try and do it anyway. That was quite a complicated explanation, but anyway, I use the Collection Colour Lash Clear Gel to set my brows. I do prefer a clear gel over a tinted one just because I find that after I have filled my brows in, I just don't need anymore colour so a clear one just does the job.

I know not everyone carves out their brows and to be honest, I never use to, but recently I just find myself unable to skip the step. Without going into too much detail, I use concealer and a flat eye shadow brush from The Body Shop. There are some more concealers that are a little more heavy duty but overall, I just use whatever is nearest to me. For concealer though my three favourites are the Rimmel Lasting Finish, Hard Candy Glamoflauge and the Freedom Pro HD Longwear. 

Do let me know your favourite brow product in the comments!

Grace xx