Some people may not be happy with the consistency of their eyebrows and would like to change them so that they look even across the brow. Some people would like to see more of an arch to their eyebrows and attempt to alter the way in which it curves.

The desire to shape and control the hair that comprise your eyebrows is one of the main reasons behind why people choose to pluck them. Plucking eyebrows is a relatively safe beauty task as long as you don’t take things too far and make it a habit that ends up damaging the hair follicles. There have been many horror stories of people who have plucked and plucked their eyebrows to be left with patchy or disappearing eyebrows.

One of the reasons you may want to pluck your eyebrows is to make your eyes appear larger. By framing them with a cleaner expanse, the eyes are given a larger frame of reference.

There is a right way and a wrong way to pluck your eyebrows if you wish to retain the healthy growth that you started with. This article is not a tutorial on how you go about plucking eyebrows – there are plenty of those available online. The main thing to keep in mind is that you should only be touching those stray eyebrow hairs that are not on the eyebrow ridge.

In other words you should be removing hairs that sit under the natural arch of the brow. Try to take them out one by one following the direction away from the nose – so, from the center of the face outwards.

Many people get way too enthusiastic with the whole plucking concept and wind up with a brow area that has been completely devastated. By removing too many hairs at once or by ripping them out in any direction, the delicate hair follicles can be irreparably damaged and eyebrow regrowth after plucking will either be hampered or impossible.

Give your brows a chance to recover, work a little bit at a time. If you need to cover up a mistake or there is a sign that your eyebrows are becoming sparse you may want to take out a soft pencil and begin coloring the brows so that they appear to be fuller than they actually are. This may simply be a temporary measure while you are waiting for your eyebrows to grow back into shape.

In each of these cases the hair follicles may have been damaged beyond repair making the prospect of ever regrowing eyebrows impossible. Alternatively, long term chemotherapy may result in eyebrow loss just as it does with scalp hair and if the treatment is going to continue over an extended period of time, there will be no eyebrow regrowth in the near future.

Semi-Permanent Eyebrow Make Up

If the eyebrow hair loss is going to be long term but not permanent the answer might be to apply makeup to the eyebrows to give the appearance that they exist. A process known as semi-permanent makeup or micropigmentation is a method of restoring the appearance of the eyebrow.

Two techniques are seen to be effective in restoring the appearance of eyebrows. The first is the hair stroke method in which precise drawing of the eyebrows is done by a makeup artist in such a way that it mimics each individual strand of eyebrow hair. This is an option that requires a skilled practitioner to achieve effectively. The second option is powdering which entails mimicking the effects of an eyebrow pencil to draw in full eyebrows that simply look like they have make up applied to them.

Semi-permanent makeup does not disturb the deeper layers of the skin so the pigment will not be retained but it will last long enough so that you won’t have to worry about re-applying makeup every day or that your eyebrows are smudged.

Eyebrow Tattooing

A more permanent option for someone, usually women, who has suffered eyebrow hair loss is eyebrow tattooing. This is a practical solution for someone who has lost their hair because of illness or from conditions such as alopecia. Eyebrow tattoos might be the direction to take if you are allergic to cosmetics or if you are simply unable to apply makeup every day.

Eyebrow tattoos can either be applied with a tattoo gun or by hand with the handwork resulting in the finer and more detailed work. In short, hand tattooing allows the professional to make the work look more like individual eyebrow hairs.

Eyebrow tattooing is a reasonable solution for someone who has exhausted the eyebrow regrowth options and who wants to give their eyes their old framed definition again.

Eyebrow Transplants

A surgical procedure is available for men and women who have permanently lost part or all of their eyebrows. Eyebrow transplant surgery is an option that involves the strand by strand transplantation of hair follicles from other parts of the body, either the scalp or the leg, to the eyebrow. The procedure usually involves extracting hair follicles from a part of the body where the hair grows more finely and then placed into incisions prepared ahead of time as grafts.

The procedure can involve up to 400 individual hairs per eyebrow that would all be placed into their new positions.

Because eyebrow hair lies flat to the head, the transplantation is done very carefully so that the new eyebrow hair sits naturally on the face. After the transplant is completed it will take some time before the results become obvious.

Before eyebrow transplant surgery can take place the patient has to be assessed as to whether they are a suitable candidate. Some people lose their eyebrows through a condition known as trichotillomania which is an obsessive urge to pluck hair. Others may be recovering from disease or have severe scar tissue as a result of some kind of trauma. Each of these cases would have to be assessed and be seen to be under control before surgery is undergone.