How to Shape Brows to Suit Your Clients' Face
Salon System Educator and Brow Expert Lisa Stone shares her top tips on shaping brows to suit your clients’ face shape.
Brow trends change all the time and what is at the height of fashion doesn’t always work for everyone. Your brows should frame your face and a well-constructed brow should always enhance, define, and lift your eyes and face. If the brow isn’t working with your face shape, it can easily make your face look older, longer, wider, or fuller or droopy.
Here are a few tips for creating a great brow for your clients and some points to consider…
Face shape of the client
The moment my client steps into my treatment room I am looking at their face, don’t be afraid to look, consider the jaw lines, the size of their forehead, where their eyes sit, the width and length of their face. It is important to learn and understand face shapes and what brow shapes work. As a rule, a brow would be shaped opposite to the face shape, for example:
Round face – You should avoid a very rounded brow as it will make the face look round and fuller, create a brow with strong lines and angles with a good arch, this can help lift and lengthen the face.
Square face - You should try and avoid strong lines and create a soft arch to soften a strong jaw line.
Long rectangled face – You should avoid very high arches as this adds to the length of the face, to shorten the length of the face keep the brows more horizontal or straight and reduces the height of the arch, this will draw eyes across the face and away from the length.
Brow mapping is key
You should also always know how to map the brows, so you are fully aware of the 3 key points for a basic brow map; your starting point, your end point (where the tail of the brow finishes) and where the highest point of the brow arch needs to sit.
I will always then look at my clients’ eyes. If they eyes are set too close, and I wish to create the illusion the eyes are wider, I will open the gap in-between the brows more. Yet if the eyes are very wide set and I wish to create the illusion the eyes are closer, I will reduce the gap in-between the brows.
If the forehead is very high and I wish to create the illusion of less, then I will create a higher arch, but if the forehead is very small, I will create less of an arch. Another little top tip for styling a brow is to always have your client in a seated position and not lying flat with relaxed muscles, work on your client in the same position as they see their brows and work from the front of your client, brows look very different when you’re styling from behind.
Here are a few extra quick-fire tips and points to consider:
Trends! What’s in fashion and will it work for this client, can I do a variation of the trend or tone it down to suit their taste.
Consider the age of a client as well as their personal preferences on brow shapes, if a client likes them thinner for example this is something that I’d take into consideration.
What do I have to work with and is what the client asking for unrealistic?
Has my client any scar tissue hiding in the brow? This brow should always be shaped first, and the brow shaped around the scar tissue.