While we talk about makeup brushes and sponges, primers and finishing sprays, some make-up tricks and tools are often ignored for their lack of glamour. Let’s change that.
The spoolie Chances are, you’ve seen this, but don’t really know what it’s called. The spoolie brush is an eyebrow-shaping tool, which looks a lot like a mascara wand (minus the product). It has soft bristles and is almost conical in shape. It could easily become your new best friend when it comes to brows. While filling your brows in, people often forget that your eyebrows, just like the hair on your head, need a good combing. Using it to brush your eyebrow hair up will help you get to those bald spots easily, allowing you to fill in your eyebrows without much effort.
If you do end up overdrawing your brows, or making them too bold, a quick comb-through with a spoolie can work the product into the skin and soften the appearance of the brow product, thereby making your brows look less harsh.
An added benefit to the spoolie? You can also use it to comb your mascara-covered lashes to prevent them from clumping and looking clumsy.
The tweezer Tweezers can be handy to have around. A little tip that a lot of us fail to do (mostly due to ease and convenience) is using a tweezer to shape your eyebrows. Pluck out extra hair and shape your eyebrows using a tweezer, as it gives you greater control, while leaving your eyebrows looking more natural and bushy than threading does. Also, to prevent yourself from threading your brows often, tweeze away the extra hair weekly. It will also prevent you from making your brows thinner with each visit to the parlour. (Remember threading was initially used only to make sure the area around your brow was clean and devoid of hair; it was never intended to be used to do the actual shaping.)
An added bonus to a tweezer is its effectiveness while adding false eyelashes. A tweezer can help you place the eyelash at the base of the natural lashline to make sure it looks natural.
The eyelash curlers Something that looks akin to a torture device, the eyelash curlers have a bad reputation for being downright scary and sometimes (if you pinch yourself) painful.
However, not only do they make your eyes look larger and give your lashes that instant flutter, eyelash curlers can be a game-changer for those mornings when you’re in a hurry. Personally, I use them instead of mascara on a day-to-day basis. Just make sure you get one that actually suits your eye shape. If it does suit your eye shape, there will be no pinching or freaking out. Instead, it will glide onto the root of your lashes and make sure your lashes look lifted. Shu Uemura and Kevyn Aucoin make great eyelash curlers.
These tools may not seem important, but will become staples in your life when you begin using them.
(The author is a make-up artist and hairstylist)
