I visited Benefit’s Brow Bar for my first ever brow tint and wax last week and, well, it wasn’t exactly what I expected. All you ladies interested in getting your brows done by a ‘pro’, this post is for you! As a background, I’ll quickly say that my natural eyebrows are thin and sparse. When wearing make up, I find it critical to darken them and accentuate the arches a bit. The whole purpose of a brow tint was to skip this step entirely for a few weeks and just to see what it would be like to have someone else take over my own brow grooming… This might have been a mistake.
So let me start with what was good. The boutique is beautiful, well-lit and the sales people are very pleasant. I told them I would be taking some photos and to chronicle this all for my blog, and they were totally happy with letting me do my thing. I was very enthusiastic about the whole deal and had high hopes.
Um, and then things got weird. We started off with a simple tint, which basically is an eyebrow dye. The whole process was fine and enjoyable until I looked in the mirror. My eyebrows were WAY darker (which I expected) but they were so unshapely, so thick, so asymmetrical. I tried to conceal my horror and asked what we could do to make the two brows match. I admit my eyebrows had not been groomed in some time, and perhaps the dark tint really accentuated what brows I did have… so I decided to wax them, to reshape and rebalance my face. After the first try, my eyebrows were still asymmetrical and very thick, so I asked her to continue waxing to ‘even them out’. We went back and forth and forth and back, and after being told for the thousandth time that my brows looked AWESOME, I paid and left ($32+tip). Here, you be the judge.
An hour later, I realized my eyebrows definitely still did not resemble each other. You know the term “sisters, not twins” when comparing eyebrows? This was more a case of “cousins, not sisters, and definitely not twins.” I worked up the courage to go back and get them fixed (ugh, I hate being an annoying customer, but if you’re not happy with a service, it’s better to tweak it than walk around feeling like you didn’t get your money’s worth!). The woman who worked with me on my brows was perfectly pleasant and happy to help me, and by the end I was much happier with the result.
Fast forward to going home and washing my face. Some of the tint was removed through washing the first time, and I liked the level of darkness the dye had given me. However, I noticed that they got lighter and lighter as each day went by, and a week later, I see no noticeable tint. My theory about this is that the tint doesn’t work well for brow hairs that are already dark to begin with. The darkness from the 1st and 2nd day must have been temporary tinting of my skin, not the hair itself. And when that staining went away, I was just left with my already dark brown and sparse eyebrow hairs and not much of a difference.
Needless to say I won’t be tinting my brows again but I do think the wax made a nice difference, by cleaning up and shaping my eyebrows to a more defined arch. I have not decided if I’ll go back to Benefit, but besides the tint fiasco, I was eventually happy with the wax and still am. I really appreciated their customer service and willingness to fix my brows the second time around. My advice in general now is that if you’re not pleased with the outcome, kindly ask them to try again and try to be as detailed as possible with feedback. It’s a whole hell of a lot better than walking around all crooked because one of your eyebrows is like “~ “ and the other like “ = ” am I right, ladies?
Here they are now. Much better. Have you ever had an eyebrow mishap? I wanna know about it!
xoxo
Trace
*Finally, I’ll add this was my personal experience based on one visit. Maybe I’m an outlier.
Trace in the Place 
They do look so much better in the second photo — they’re fabulous!!
hahah! thanks!!
Ps. I nominate you for a Liebster Award! 🙂
http://loveleavelaura.wordpress.com/2014/06/02/liebster-award-2/
ooh thank you! let’s see what i come up with!
You’re welcome! 🙂
Here’s the post 😉
https://traceintheplace.com/2014/06/01/my-second-leibster-award/
I have super sparse brows too, I feel your pain. I’ve been thinking about trying out the Benefit Brow Bar at Ulta lately. I’ve never had my brows done before (since there isn’t a ton of hair to work with), but I’m hoping they can help me perfect the shape. I’m going to stay away from the tinting, since my brow hairs are already pretty dark. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Hey girl! Glad my two cents was helpful! I am not sure the brow bar girls are any more qualified to do brows than the waxers at your local salon, to be honest. Benefit would cost you $18, which is double the price of most places I have seen. Wherever you go, definitely bring a picture of your ideal brows so they can better help you achieve it, and good luck! Let me know how it goes!
Great post! Your eyebrows look way, way better in the last photo. I’m glad it eventually worked out, they look super!
Aida, thank you! I am so glad they’re even now! 😉
I don’t know if my brows are ever symmetrical.. just like my eyes.. oh well.
FUNNY THOUGH, I had a nightmare last night where my brows were ultawaxed and it was terrifying
Love the result! Naturally thick brows ftw! 😀
Good on you for sticking to your guns! It’s quite pricey to get them done, I never realised that Benefit charges that much for giving your brow a make over. Glad you came back to get it all sorted because in the first photo you can really tell the difference. The second looks a whole lot better! Great post 🙂
Caryl – http://carylalmelor.com/
Thanks so much! I’m glad you agree – I was worried maybe I was being too picky but if you can tell the difference then I really wasn’t being difficult! 🙂
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Hi Tracy!
I’ve been reading your blog for the last two hours and I LOVE IT!
I had pretty much the same experience two months ago back in Paris and I’ll NEVER go back to a salon… ever. I learned a few lessons: it’s bad to wax your eyebrows – tweezers provide the best results by far – and when you know exactly what you want, it is impossible the get the expected outcome when someone else shapes your eyebrows. I recommend going to a salon ONLY when you want a major reshape and don’t know how to do it yourself. If you choose this option, ask the lady to shape your brows step by step and tell her to stop when it looks neat but natural! Then the real tip is to keep doing it yourself once every 1-2 days – depending on how hairy your brow is and how quick it grows. My recommendations for shaping your own eyebrows: use a tweezer to shape them little by little and don’t wait days till the next session so you just have to remove the regrowth. If you do that once every two days, it will seriously take less than 5 minutes per session. To reshape your brows, follow the rules on that pic: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qw7p5Wh5cDA/UoyB59WgewI/AAAAAAAAAQI/MJrmOoM5do0/s1600/12shape.jpg. Basically, point 1 is when your brow should BEGIN. Point 2 is where the brow should ARCH. Between points 1 and 2, the brow should be STRAIGHT and PARALLEL – i.e.no curve. The brow should arch on the OUTER edge of the eyeball. Point 3 is where the brow should END. Be careful with that part of your eyebrow, it stops growing if you tweeze it too much!
Voilaaa – Hope it was helpful!
Bisou bisou!
Jiji
JIJI!!! Omg first of all this post is so embarrassing because, I mean, look at that photo when they fucked my brows… I didn’t cry but it was a nightmare for sure. I tried doing that line trick that is in the link before but for some reason my eyebrows are oddly straight, not arched much. I definitely need to reshape, but every time i go to my threading person they end up a bit too arched, like I’m making an angry face!
Also I need help on making them symmetrical, because they are NEVER symmetrical! Okay I’m inviting you over soon for tea and eyebrow help when my house is ready. xoxo Thanks so much for reading my blog!
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