If you were also born in the mid-1990s, then you know exactly what my brows have been through and why I’ve desperately searched: ‘How to grow eyebrows’.
As somebody born with pale Irish skin and dark Italian hair, I’ve always had brows that stood out like a sore thumb on my face. As such, somebody in school once told me that I had, and I quote, “Joe Jonas eyebrows,” at which point I started plucking them into oblivion. If only I could go back in time and stop my younger self…
While I thought I was going to end up with smooth, rounded arches like Gwen Stefani or Jennifer Aniston, my clumsy, tweezer-laden tween hands haphazardly created a shape that I can only describe as sperm-like: thicker and rounded in the middle, with small, downward-curving tails. Not cute! I still shudder at the mere thought of them. Forget brow blindness, this was more like full-on brow grief.
You can imagine the rage I felt when full, feathered eyebrows – AKA brow lamination – made a comeback just before I went off to college in the 2010s, forcing me to spend my mall job money on loads of eyebrow pomade, which I’d applied in the bold, brick-like shape we’ve all come to know (and hate) 10 years down the line. And the worst part is that all of this was because the brow hair that younger me had plucked away showed no signs of ever growing back.
Enter microblading in 2016, which I opted to get as soon as I became a beauty writer with access to complimentary services. Going along with the trends of the time, I had my overplucked gaps filled with a thick, bold, angular shape — one that has yet to fully fade three years after my last touch-up (FYI, microblading is only supposed to last for two years).
From 2018 through 2020, I was constantly peeved by the way my eyebrows looked. Red-tinged patches of faded pigment interrupted the soft, bushy look I was attempting to achieve, which was difficult without the abundance of natural brow hair I’d had as a child. Then the pandemic came, and I knew my time had come: While hidden away from the world, I vowed, I would restore my brows to their original glory. Now, my eyebrows are naturally full enough that I rarely feel the need to fill them in with anything — plus, they’re just thick enough to distract from those lingering, faded pigments. Success!
My eyebrows au naturale definitely aren’t what I consider perfect yet, but I’m getting pretty damn close. With the end of the journey in sight, here is my best advice on how to grow eyebrows back out after years of torture at the hands of ever-changing brow trends.
Less – nay, nothing – is more when it comes to brow makeup
I began my eyebrow regrowth journey back in 2020, and that’s when I met brow artist Azi Sacks, who made some game-changing recommendations right off the bat. (She was the first eyebrow professional I’d ever entrusted with my sacred arches, by the way.) The first was that I should not pluck, wax, shave, dermaplane, or do any type of hair removal around my eyebrows. They’re words you’d expect to hear from someone who does eyebrows to pay the rent, but she was on the money when she said that I couldn’t grow my eyebrows out if I was constantly fussing over out-of-place hairs, which can be easier said than done.
She also advised avoiding any heavyweight eyebrow gels that dry down stiff. I hated hearing that because those are my favourite types of eyebrow gels, but she had a point. As cosmetic chemist Ron Robinson once noted, many gels of that nature contain alcohol as a primary ingredient. “That in itself may cause drying,” he explained. And, as Sacks previously told me, “when brow hair is overly dried out, it shatters.” Sacks also recommended straying from eyebrow pomades, waxes and pencils; according to her and Robinson, the pull of their waxy textures can tug at brow hairs and sometimes pull them out entirely.
It was a big sacrifice to make, giving up most of the eyebrow products I’d used religiously for so long, but I saw immediate results once I tucked them away in my not-to-be-used drawer. More hairs sprouted up over time, and those hairs were thicker than I'd expected, too.
So what products can you use when you’re on a strict growth regimen? Plenty of things! Two of Sacks’, and therefore, my personal favourites are Kosas Air Brow and MAC Eye Shadow in Charcoal Brown, applied with light strokes. Now that I’ve gotten close to my desired fullness, I rarely use any pigmented products in my eyebrows – most of the time, I just brush a little Vaseline through them to meld them into place without drying them out.
Rosemary oil (lots of it) is your friend
I don't know if you’ve heard, but rosemary oil has been clinically proven to support new hair growth at a similar rate to minoxidil (i.e. Rogaine or Nioxin). “It works as an antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and most importantly, microcirculation enhancer,” cosmetic chemist Ginger King previously explained. “An antioxidant is a must for all hair-care to preserve integrity; microcirculation will help to re-energise the scalp for better growth.”
When I discovered this for myself, I figured the stuff must be an effective tool for eyebrow growth, seeing as it can help promote growth on the scalp. So I immediately stocked up on it and began combing it through my eyebrows with a spoolie brush every night at the end of my skincare routine (when I’m lazing around the house for the day, I’ll apply some extra in the morning and throughout the day, too).
A couple of weeks after I started using rosemary oil religiously, new brow hairs started sprouting like crazy in all the areas they hadn’t appeared in years – primarily, in the very centre and on the underside of the tails. Two of my favourite products for this are Kiehl’s Magic Elixr (which I also use on my scalp to treat hair loss) and Mielle Organics Rosemary Mint Scalp & Hair Strengthening Oil. Consider them the MVPs of this entire article because you will get impatient waiting for new eyebrow hairs to grow without them. Trust me.
Eyebrow tints can reveal hidden hairs you didn’t know you had
Now, if there’s one thing I learned from my first experiences of having my eyebrows done by professionals, it's the power of tinting. Though temporary, an eyebrow tint can darken all the wispy, transparent hairs in and around your eyebrows, hence why it’s important not to do any brow hair removal while you’re waiting for brows to grow. If you stave off those tweezers until after your brows are tinted, it makes a huge difference in their overall shape and density.
Eyebrow tinting is a service you should absolutely seek from a professional because if you use the wrong products or techniques, you might end up with permanent eyebrows akin to Sam Eagle from The Muppets. That said, I don’t always have the time or the money to do that on a monthly basis, nor do most people. So instead, I rely on the Mini Tint Kit from Beautiful Brows & Lashes Professionals. Designed specifically for tinting brows and lashes (I urge you not to use hair dye or anything permanent), this kit comes with one tube of pigment, a developer, an application brush and a mixing pot.
It should be noted before I go any further that we do not recommend at-home eyebrow tinting – which is why I conducted a patch test before I ever put this stuff near my eyes for the first time, as recommended by Connecticut-based board-certified dermatologist Mona Gohara, MD. “In general, dyes can definitely sensitise the skin, creating a contact allergy – even henna,” she explains. “Do a test spot on your inner arm before putting on your brows.” Within a couple of hours, you’ll know with certainty that you’re not sensitive (or worse, allergic) to the formula before putting it on your own precious brows. Be sure to keep a close eye on any signs of irritation or an adverse reaction before applying in more delicate areas.
After using a cotton swab to trace outside my eyebrows with Vaseline (this prevents the tint from getting on the skin where I ’t want it), I simply follow the brand’s instructions: I combine a small dollop of pigment (I use either black or dark brown, but you can customise your kit to whichever shade you prefer by mixing colours) with a couple of drops of the developer.
Then, using the thin, stiff brush provided, I apply the tint in the exact shape I want my brows to be. This part requires a hell of a lot of patience and a steady hand because you have to be extra careful not to accidentally apply the transparent, light-coloured gel somewhere you don’t want it, even with the Vaseline in place. The tint becomes darker as it develops, giving you a tiny window to wipe off any excess outside your desired borders before it stains, and there is no going back.
It shouldn’t sit on your eyebrows any longer than five to seven minutes, per the product instructions, and once that time is up, I use micellar water on a cotton pad to wipe off as much as the tint as I can before washing my face entirely. It’s only at that point that I might pluck away the one or two stray hairs (don’t go crazy or be tempted to overpluck!) that usually make themselves known with the tint. After that, I’m free to put down pretty much all of my eyebrow products and bask in the ease of having the hard work of filling in done for me for a couple of weeks as it gradually fades.
The overall advice I’m about to give you for growing out your eyebrows – whether it be to recover from overplucking or to conceal botched/faded microblading – is advice that I always hate receiving, so I get it if you low-key want to punch me when I tell you this: Have patience. And lots of it.
In my case, it’s taken two whole years to go from having good natural eyebrows to great ones, and I was already starting out with pretty thick eyebrows to begin with. Growing your eyebrows out and returning them to their former glory is going to take time; what amount of time, I can’t tell you, unfortunately, but it does get better if you keep at it.
Ultimately, that is all it takes: time, consistency and a little restraint (put those tweezers down!). Once you get in the habit of doing all these things, you really won’t even notice how much your routine has changed. Plus, cutting out all the products and letting your real brows flourish will save you tonnes of effort once you’ve reached your eyebrow goals. All in all, I think this long method on how to grow eyebrows is more than worth it, at least in my book. Besides, they’re not going to get any worse, so what have you got to lose?
A version of this story was originally published on Allure.
