We all have been in that situation where we run out of Eyebrow makeup (pomades, pencils, and powders.) Or maybe you are just on a budget and are trying to spend as little as possible on makeup these days. Well, I’ve been doing this little trick of doing my eyebrows with some brown eye shadow and I had made it work wonders! The problem with simply putting eyeshadow is that it will smudge or really not last very long. So I come up with this technique (honestly haven’t seen it in da web) to make “eye shadow eyebrows” last longer, especially in the warm weather!

This is what you will need:

  • Brown (or a color eye shadow close to your natural hair color) eyeshadow
  • Eyebrow flat brush
  • A spoolie brush
  • Translucent face powder or any compact powder you may have around
  • Concealer or foundation
  • Optional: Setting Spray
e y e b r o w s
  1. Start with a clean face, moisturized, with sunscreen, and if you are putting any base you can do that right now. I usually do my eyebrows when that’s done and then if I make a mistake I correct it with whatever I used as a base either foundation or concealer.
  2. Brush your eyebrows upwards (giving them your desire shape) with a spoolie and you can start dipping the flat brush on the eyeshadow. Make sure to tap on the eyeshadow because you want to be able to build up the color so it doesn’t look super dark.
  3. Begin drawing little strokes in the eyebrow following your natural eyebrow shape. I love having a well-defined tail, so I will go ahead and extend the color a little bit longer than my natural tail.
  4. Next, you can check if you like how you filled them in and if you want to clean them up, take another flat brush and dip it into concealer/foundation (just a little bit).
  5. When that’s done, make sure to brush the eyebrows again so the eyeshadow blends with your natural eyebrows.
  6. Now, this is the part where the eyeshadow will be stick. Take a small powder brush and dip it into your translucent/setting powder. Slightly tap the excess and begin tapping that powder on the eyebrow.
  7. It’s okay if your eyebrows look a bit white right now, you will then take the spoolie and brush them again as you did in the beginning.
  8. If there is any extra/noticeable powder at this point you can take the powder brush and brush of the excess carefully.
  9. Finally, you can add settling spray to look everything in place but this option really.
  10. You can end with a little bit of highlight in the brow bone and the upper part of the eyebrow. Ta-dah!

Pretty simple stuff! But honestly, it has helped when I’m trying to get a nice makeup look without buying extra things. You can check out the video if you want are more of a visual learner!

Let’s Get Geeky about Why the Eyebrow STICKS

You know I always like to know the chemistry behind things, and I was always curious about the ingredients present in makeup and how well they work with each other. In this case, I will talk about the main characters who are setting powder and setting spray. What gives them their “setting” properties?

Setting Powder

smol Laura Mercier uwu
By PubChem

I’m a fan of how well Laura Mercier’s Translucent Setting Powder works, it’s an all-time favorite. Two of its most prominent ingredients are Talc and Magnesium Myristate. Talc seems to be having a bad reputation these days because it is a filler in makeup, that’s why powders are soft and silky when applied. But for the sake of this analysis is it important to recognize it has the ability to absorb oil which sometimes can carry over to the eye area from the forehead. It also prevents caking which is essential when wearing makeup.

Now, Magnesium Myristate works similarly in terms of silky texture in the skin and adhesion to the skin (aka making it stick). Also, this compound comes in a white powdery form which explains why setting powder is “powder,” lol.

Setting Spray

Another big one in the makeup industry is the All Nighter Long-Lasting Makeup Setting Spray by Urban Decay. Setting sprays are like these mists that melt makeup and fuse it with your skin to make the product more “skin-like.” This is thanks to Alcohol Denat because it has properties that absorb and dry pretty quickly in the skin. The alcohol acts like a thinner which is why the makeup tends to break down a little bit so it blends with all the products once it dries. Not only this but that refreshing feeling you get when that dries up is also contributed to Alcohol Denat.

PYP

Now PVP is the next one in line of ingredients in this setting spray, It stands for Polyvinylpyrrolidone (yeah… let’s just leave it as PVP), its job here is to fixate, which again is all about that staying in-place situation. In a way, it created a film that keeps things under it together.

Let know if you found this quick and easy tutorial helpful, and if you’d like to know more things like this, comment down below!

Sources:

incidecoder.com/ingredients/alcohol-denat

www.makeyourown.buzz/blog/magnesium-myristate-in-skin-care-lipsticks-and-cosmetics

www.makingcosmetics.com/PVP

incidecoder.com/ingredients/pvp

uk.lush.com/ingredients/polyvinylpyrrolidone-pvp