Cosplay Everyday!

The Wonderful World of 

Colored Eyebrows...

and how to do it!

Helllooo there! In my opinion, coloring eyebrows for a character is the finishing touch to a cosplay. Some cosplayers do it; others don't. I'm all for it. After all, eyebrows frame your face. (I fill in my brows on a regular basis...brown, not anime colors, lol...because my eyebrows are kinda thin. It frames the face well, and it looks nice too.) As I said before, if the character has blue hair...they're gonna have blue eyebrows. However, there are some animes that show the character having just regular eyebrows. Personally, I like to make my cosplays as realistic as possible, so I'm gonna match my eyebrows to the color of the character's hair. Except black hair. Sometimes. I will get it to that later. Now let's begin!!!

OK, here's me. Nothing on my eyebrows whatsoever. Be sure to do the rest of your make up  first and leave the brows (and lip color) for the end. 

OK, let's chat about Eyebrows 101 really quick. Use this little pic to help guide you when filling in your eyebrows with your color of choice. Use a pencil to do this. Pic One is where your eyebrow should begin. Line the pencil along the side of your nose, and make sure it matches up. (If you get your eyebrows groomed or waxed, it makes it easier to fill in the eyebrows.  I do it. But, just because I do, doesn't mean you have to) The left above pic is where your eyebrow should end/taper off. Put the the pencil on an angle as I did to see it for yourself. Third pic below left is where the natural arch of your eyebrow should be. Lay the pencil over the middle part of your eye; the pupil. Voila! The end. 

Brush your eyebrows with an eyebrow spoolie to comb them in place. You can get these at any beauty supply store. Some eyebrow pencils come as a duo, with the pencil on one end and the spoolie on the other. The spoolies are cheap and a great buy :)

Take a white eyeliner pencil and draw over your eyebrow like I am doing in the above picture. Follow the natural shape of your eyebrow. 

And yes, you will look crazy for a moment with your whitish looking eyebrows...I sure do! But...this is a must! The white eyeliner helps to mute out your eyebrow color. If you have light blonde eyebrows...you are lucky! You can either skip this step or use it anyway. People with medium to dark eyebrows need this step to lighten...and some blondies already have light brows :) Up to you, blondies! As for redheads, I'd do this step to mute the red.

You have a few choices as to what medium to use for coloring in your eyebrows. The palette on the left I bought from a Halloween store for $3.99. Party stores like Party City should have these or you can order online. Ben Nye sells a color palette like the one I have...better quality and ahem, more expensive (but so worth it...wanna get soon!). Some of these palettes can be found online. Colored eyeliner sometimes works very well too, but it all depends on the color. Using a colored eyeliner means you can skip the white eyeliner step above. This would work well for people with lighter eyebrows. SO, if you have light eyebrows, try the colored eyeliner. One of my best friends is African American. She was cosplaying as a character who has dark lovely purple hair. When I applied her make up, I decided on a whim to use a purple eyeliner on her dark eyebrows. And it looked ah-mazing! Didn't have to do the white eyeliner step...it was great. She has thin, perfectly groomed eyebrows though, so this must have had something to do with it. :)

In this little tutorial, I am using regular eyeshadow. I am just giving you other options/mediums to work with. Load up your little angled brush as shown in the picture on the right. An angled brush is your best bet for filling your eyebrows. The angle helps fill in the thicker part of the brow near the bridge of your nose and also makes a clean line where your eyebrow tapers off at the end. Angled brushes can be bought at any beauty supply store.

See how nicely the angled brush works in the picture? I cannot do my colored eyebrows without it. If you are desperate and you forgot your angle brush at home, then use a q tip. Don't use your finger. It will smudge and be messy. Moving on......!

Once you color in your brows, dip a q tip into a make up remover. A make up wipe would work too, but the q tip is more precise. Do not use water. It will be a bad scene. Trust me, lol. Take the q tip and clean around your brows to clean up any eyeshadow remnants that may have smudged, etc.

After cleaning up with the q tip dipped in make up remover, take a small concealer brush and put some concealer on it. Trace around your brows to make the skin even. This also makes the colored brow *POP*! This little concealer brush was purchased at Target for $3! It's by E.L.F. The make up brushes they make are just as good (if not better) than some of the more expensive brushes out there. 

Yatta! Finished! Purple brows for any purple haired character you are cosplaying as! I choose to do purple for the tutorial because it's my favorite color.

I was on a roll today coloring in my eyebrows, ha ha ha! Above is black, the left is blue, and the right is a cool minty green color. The above black eyebrow I did not use the white eyeliner step. Like I said, (I am sorry I keep repeating this) you don't always have to use the white eyeliner step. I swear by it when I am going to use purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, etc. It works really well. A good idea (I do this) is to do a dry run of your make up before the con. Then you will know what works and what doesn't work for your brows.

Let's talk about the deal with black haired characters. When I was going to cosplay as a black haired character, I went out to buy a black eyebrow pencil because, well, this is what I thought I was supposed to do at the time. Black hair, black eyebrows, ok!?! NOPE. I went to the MAC cosmetic counter (I love the people who work there. They become so psyched when you say you're going to an anime con. The MAC brand has amazing colors in their line and love dramatic make up, which is perfect for us otaku cosplayers! Hello, false eyelashes galore! A few times the make up artists recommended looks for me to try when I showed a picture of the character!) and spoke to the make up artist. I told her I needed a black eyebrow pencil. She looked confused and asked if it was for someone else, as I am a brunette. I explained that I was wearing a black wig and needed a black eyebrow pencil. The make up artist shook her head and told me to purchase an eyebrow pencil one shade darker than my natural brow color. Basically, a very dark brown. Come to find out, filled in black eyebrows look incredibly severe. It is different if you actually have naturally black eyebrows (so pretty!). Obviously, you will keep your black brows for your black haired character, you lucky duck. But....if you are a brunette, blonde, red head, etc try the darker brown. If you really wanna do black, use the eye shadow like I did in the above pic. The pencil is too harsh and the shadow will be softer and more natural looking. Some characters do need the black eyebrows, I know this....quite a few Hetalia characters have black eyebrows and it is very apparent and necessary to do so.

This concludes the tutorial on colored eyebrows for cosplay. I hope it helped you and maybe you will use it for your next con *^_^* Until next time...ja matta ne!