The at-home brow maintenance tips your beauty therapist wants you to know

woman plucking eyebrows
If you're in lockdown and your brows have seen better days, we're here to help. Photo credit: Getty Images.

With masks here to stay for the foreseeable future, now more than ever brows have the leading role on our face. But for those of us in lockdown, our normally carefully plucked, shaped and coloured brows may be looking a little worse for wear.

If you're fearful of emerging into level 2 with two months of wild growth on your face, now is not the time to make rash decisions with the tweezers, says Off & On salon's brow expert Rachel Steadman.

"Ultimately your best brow is your most believable one, so in-salon our trained experts always start with your face first to have your brows working with it rather than fighting for front row. But with Aucklanders marking their sixth week in lockdown, we appreciate your brows may have seen stronger days," she told Newshub. 

"We want to make it as easy as possible for you to get out of lockdown without a brow disaster on your hands, especially when we're not able to be beside you to hold your hands and tell you when it's time to step away from the tweezers!"

To celebrate National Brow Day on October 2 - yes, apparently that's a thing - Steadman has shared her tips with Newshub for brow maintenance that you can do from the safety of your bubble.

See the bigger picture 

Step away from your magnifying mirror or standing too close to your mirror! Being too close prevents you from seeing the full shape and balance of your brow, as well as increasing the chance of over plucking. Remember, with physical distancing no one will be able to see those rogue brow hairs anyway. 

Embrace your natural shape

Before you start tweezing, fill your brows in with pencil or powder so that you can see the shape. This allows you to fill in any of those pesky gaps so that you don't end up over-tweezing the areas we are trying to grow in. Unsure what shape suits your face? Try our new Off and On Instagram filter to see what style you like best. 

Don't Over-Tweeze

Only take a pinkie amount from between the brows and leave the top of your brows - if this is over-tweezed it can distort the natural shape and proportions of your brows.

Remove hairs with the growth 

Remove hairs with the natural growth, rather than tugging them towards the mirror or in other directions. Distorting the hair by removing it the wrong way can cause hairs to regrow at an odd angle - so let the tweezers follow the hair's natural direction.  

Try DIY Brow Lamination

Less is more! Full, natural brushed up brows are in right now, with treatments like our brow lamination trending. If you're unable to book in for the real deal, get the look at home over lockdown by using a brow gel or some hair spray on a spoolie to brush hairs up and set them into place.