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• Invest in a good pair of tweezers; Tweezerman Slant Tweezers are the easiest to use. Pluck by place tweezers at the base of the hair, grip tightly, and pull. If you pluck from the tip of the hair, you risk breaking the hair.


• Unless you have very dark, thick brows, a brow pencil is also a good idea, I favor Kevyn Aucoin The Precision Brow Pencil (in a word: idiotproof). The ideal brow filler is waxy rather than soft, so that it will apply lightly and keep a fine point, and dilute and drab in color (with the exception of black hair, for which a soft lead pencil is actually ideal, I would recommend a shade or two darker than your haircolor), so that you don't overdo it. Use light, short strokes, and then brush your brows to distribute the product evenly.


• Clear mascara is also a nice touch, if you have a tendencies towards unruly hairs, and it gives a glossy shine. In a pinch, hair gel on a toothbrush will do. Not everyone will find this to be a necessity, but some might find it indispensable.


• To shape your brow, you will need a mirror, regular writing pencil, tweezers, a dark eyeliner pencil (for marking purposes), and possibly a white eyeliner pencil if you are particularly unshaky. The brow should start approximately one pencil-width from the inner corner of the eye. The arch should reach its highest point where the pencil crosses the brow when you have aligned the pencil to the tip of your nose and the pupil of your eye (staring foreward). Mark these two key points.


• Do not use a magnifying mirror, you will more easily lose your sense of how the brow fits in the face. In fact, use a mirror in which you can see your entire face at all times.


• If you have close-set eyes, start the brows slightly further apart; if you have far-set eyes, start them slightly closer together. But be very, very careful. Brows that are too close-set or too far-set look really funny. The distance between your eyes is perfectly proportioned if the space between them is equal to the length of your eye.


• If your face is long, a straight brow, with a minimal arch, will help widen the face. If your face is round, then conversely, you will want as high an arch as possible. A square face shape benefits (as with Lauren Bacall above) from an angular shape. A heart-shaped face looks good with a rounded curve. But I personally think bone structure, rather than face shape, is a more reliable guide. Follow the natural curve of the brow bone, and you can't really go wrong.


• Thickness is a matter of taste, but a strong brow is best for big, strong features, delicate brows with small, delicate features.


• I usually pluck freehand, but if you are lacking in confidence, it's easy to fill in the desired shape with a dark eyeliner and white out the undesired hairs with a white eyepencil. That way, you can test drive the brow below you ever apply a pair of tweezers to it.


• Once you've gotten a good shape, you'll need to maintain it weekly, and you won't have to repeat these steps, though it might occasionally be a good idea to make sure you haven't deviated too much. A second plucking is always less painless than the first.


• The most important thing to remember is that brows are not intended to be isolated, THEY MUST WORK WITH YOUR FACE. Don't force it; it will look really, really bad. What to avoid: overplucking (don't be zealous, pluck a little, stand back and look), a "comma" effect, like two tadpoles above your eyes, the end of the brow must extend past the outer corner of the eye, too harsh of a brow product, don't set brows too far apart or too close together.

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