HOW TO GROW AND THICKEN YOUR EYEBROWS

All about eyebrows and how you can grow them faster and thicker

For the sake of clarity please note that The Happy Sage purchased the recommended products, they were not gifted. There are no affiliate links in this article.

As we age our hair can get thinner and this means eyebrows can also start to look sparse and patchy too.

It’s not just age that can thin your eyebrows out, so can over-plucking and medical treatments such as certain chemotherapy drugs. I lost all my eyebrows when I had chemotherapy and it’s not until they have gone that you realise what a great job they did. Not only do they help define your facial features (you do look a bit weird without them) but they also stop water and dust getting in your eyes.

Do eyebrows grow back?

If you have over-plucked your eyebrows, this will normally depend on how long you have been plucking them for and whether or not you have damaged the hair follicles. In most cases, and given the right conditions, your eyebrows will grow back again.

Do eyebrows grow back after chemotherapy?

After chemotherapy, yes they do! Mine grew back just as good as new, but you must be patient. The hair that you lose during chemotherapy falls out from the root so the hair has to grow back up the root shaft before you see it. For eyebrows this can take 2 – 3 weeks after you finish your last dose of chemotherapy.

What style of eyebrows are most youthful looking?

Full, dark eyebrows have always been seen as a signifier of good health and youth, although probably subconsciously. Humans appear programmed to see contrasting colours in facial features, such as bright whites of the eyes and dark brows or white teeth and darker lip colour as youthful and attractive.

What shape should my eyebrows be?

Everyone has a natural eyebrow shape that will most likely look the best for their particular shape of face, however many of us pluck, wax, tweeze and pencil our brows into an unnatural shape for our face.

Brows should frame your face and eyebrows that cover your brow bone can often soften facial ageing slightly, giving you a younger look. Never pluck hair from the top of the brow line as this ruins the natural shape, and remember that natural brows do not have square, block shaped ends.

What colour should my eyebrows be?

Dark brows are considered the most youthful looking but not so dark and thick that they look unnatural. Try and have your brow colour a close but slightly darker shade than your hair colour if you want a natural, anti-ageing look. Extremely dark eyebrows can be quite ageing.

How to grow and thicken your eyebrows

There are natural and effective ways to grow your eyebrows and make them thicker:

• Start by just leaving them alone, no plucking, waxing or tweezing. This can be hard for a few weeks as your eyebrows start to grow out, but stick with it, this phase is soon over - I grew my fringe longer to disguise the in-between stage!

• Make sure that your diet contains plenty of protein (think meat, eggs, fish, cheese, natural yoghurt). Most of us eat far too many carbs and too little protein.

• You also need to consume plenty of healthy fats from foods such as nuts, seeds and avocados.

• Ensure you have plenty of iron in your diet. You can supplement with a sachet of Spatone every day, which is a gentle and easily absorbed form of iron. Spatone - £15.50 for 28 x 20ml sachets available from Holland and Barret, Amazon and supermarkets.

• One of the best things you can do for thicker eyebrows is to start taking a collagen supplement. You can take a marine form of collagen, which is said to be best for hair, skin and nails, or a bovine one. Whichever one you take, make sure that it is a hydrolysed one (where the particles are small enough to be easily absorbed by the body). The collagen should be sourced from wild caught fish or grass fed beef (not farmed) to avoid ingesting antibiotics and hormones. My tried and tested marine collagen powder is Miracle Greens Marine Collagen, £27.99 for 400g (read the review on Miracle Green Marine Collagen) but I have had excellent results also with 100% Pure Collagen from Intelligent Health £16.47 for 450g. Both of these products are available on Amazon. The bovine form of collagen is usually cheaper than the marine. You can find out a whole lot more about collagen by reading my article ‘What is Collagen Good for?’.

• Stop using eye and make-up cleansers that contain any form of alcohol. These are very drying and cream cleansers are much kinder to the brows, eyelashes and delicate skin in the eye area. Try Aurelia London’s Conditioning Eye and Lash Cleanser, a unique lash and brow boosting cleanser, £32 for 100ml or £10 for a 15ml trial bottle - or Green People's Gentle Cleanse and Make-up Remover £25 for 150ml.

How to grow your eyebrows faster

If you want to grow your eyebrows faster and thicker naturally, trying the following tips:

• Rub castor oil or argan oil in to your eyebrows every night before bed. I have had the best results with a pure organic argan oil. Try Neal’s Yard organic argan oil, one of the best I’ve found. Neal’s Yard Organic Argan Oil £22 for 50ml.

• Try Inika Organic’s Lash and Brow Serum, a natural product that boosts lash and brow growth naturally - £32 for 7ml, and getting rave reviews.

You should notice a significant improvement in your eyebrows within about three months. If you are using eyebrow defining products such a brow pencils and powders, make sure they are natural ones that use waxes and oils to further condition your brows. Try Inika Organic’s Brow Pencils – £19, available in 3 colours and which give a lovely blendable colour, I use this product myself. Or try their wonderful Brow Perfector which gives great volume to the brows by using bamboo stem fibres that build up the hair length and body whilst also tinting the brows at the same time. £27 for 6.5ml and available in 3 colours. I use this product quite a lot! All Inika Organic products are natural so you know you are not putting anything on your eyebrows which is going to stunt the growth of the eyebrow hair.

You may find for a few weeks that the hair on one eyebrow seems to be growing faster than the other, but don’t worry, they will balance out eventually. You will also probably notice your face changes slightly with your new brow shape and/or colour. Take a look at photos of yourself before you started changing the shape of your eyebrows and look at how your face looked then.

Changing the shape of your brows to their natural shape and thickening them up can really help you achieve that natural and youthful look, and it’s also low on maintenance – just a eyebrow tint if you need it!

If you are interested in natural face cleansing products, why not check out some of my other articles:

• Natural Cleansing Balms – how to use them properly and why you should never use one with beeswax in it.

• Lyonsleaf Beauty Balm review – a fabulous facial balm cleanser which is ideal to use when you are trying to grow and thicken your eyebrows. You can also get 20% off by using code HappySage20 at the checkout!

• Baie Botanique Cleanser review – another great product for removing eye and brow make-up naturally

• Aurelia Cell Repair Night Oil review – a fabulous facial oil to use at night that also helps condition and feed your brows

• Aurelia London CBD Aqua Oil Cleanser review– a multi phase cleanser with CBD crystal isolate and hemp.

There is so much you can do to encourage your brows to thicken and hasten growth so why not give it a go? If you don’t like the results, you can always go back to how you were before!

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