Where to get the new ‘French girl’ eyebrow
It’s time to update your brows with ones of these cutting-edge new treatments
Eyebrow treatments are the fastest route to a sharper, more youthful look. Moving on from the Cara (Delevingne) copycat bushy brow, new trends point to a straighter, more refined brow with celebrities such as Gigi Hadid and Florence Pugh ditching the arch for the boy brow, an androgynous straight-looking brow. At London and Paris fashion weeks, bleached brows also made an appearance and Kim Kardashian recently revealed her take on the trend, with a buzz cut and bleached brows overlaid with a skinny brow silhouette. While strong beauty looks like this might not go mainstream, they provide inspiration for those wishing to rethink their brow shape, and once you’ve done that, here are the experts who can deliver all your brow dreams.
For brow balancing
A former Dior make-up artist, Suzanne Martin restores ageing and overplucked brows to their former glory with a technique she calls the Couture Brow (£1,400; lanesboroughclubandspa.com). Assessing the client’s face and personal style, she draws a brow template with an eyebrow pencil. “Symmetry is key in beauty so by aligning brows we can create balance in the face and lift the eyes by changing the angle of the brow,” she says. “The key is not to over-arch the brow as this can look cheap.”
Martin uses a microneedling technique, creating little hair-like strokes with pigments just under the surface of the skin mimicking the natural direction and lengths of brows. The sensation is like a scratch and the area can feel a little tender for a couple of hours afterwards. One must avoid saunas, cardio workouts and active beauty products with any kind of acid in them for 48 hours after treatment as this may irritate the “wounds” that can scab over and take about a week to heal. Brows will look about 50 per cent darker for a week post treatment before the colour settles.
Martin offers a top-up consultation four weeks after treatment to tweak the brow if necessary. The results can last up to three years but yearly top-ups (£800) are recommended.
For the ageing brow
Often the first place to age is the delicate eye area as the orbital bone widens and the soft tissues in the temples hollow out, resulting in an inward depression on the brows. The Bright Eyes treatment (from £900; drmedispa.com) seeks to counteract these issues using two types of hyaluronic acid filler precisely injected to elevate the brows and brighten the under-eye area.
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Dr Munir Somji, who has clinics in London and Essex, injects Restylane Volyme (a hyaluronic acid filler that has larger molecules than some other brands so it spreads out evenly under the tissues, minimising lumps and bumps) into the temple region and to the tail of the brow. Next in the tear trough area, Somji places Restylane Eyelight, a stiffer hyaluronic acid gel designed for precise injections. It has a reduced water-binding capacity that minimises puffiness under the eyes while brightening dark tear troughs.
A few days of bruising and swelling is possible post treatment but the effects last between 18 and 24 months.
For a permanent fix
Dr Bessam Farjo, a former president of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery, has been restoring hairlines for 30 years and is one of a handful of specialists in the UK offering eyebrow transplantation (from £3,000; farjo.com), a specialised procedure that is becoming increasingly popular with men and women.
“Eyebrow transplantation must be super precise, as eyebrows grow in a herringbone pattern, sprouting at different angles,” Farjo explains. “Inner hairs near the nose grow upwards but towards the tail of brow they grow sideways. On the upper margin of the brow hairs grow outwards and downwards and on the lower they grow upwards, converging onto each other in the middle of the eyebrow. Implantation has to replicate this pattern.”
Each hair has to be placed so it curls towards the skin rather than outwards to avoid a wild brow look. Farjo often uses FUE (follicular unit excision), a procedure that numbs the scalp with a local anaesthetic and uses a puncture tool to harvest hair follicles from the back of the scalp approximately 3-4mm under the skin to remove the follicle root. Tiny needles are then used to make puncture holes in the eyebrow to resemble the herringbone pattern and Farjo implants the harvested follicles.
Patients can expect crusting and bruising for about a week post treatment and the new hair growth becomes viable about three months later. The results are permanent, but the only caveat is that new hairs grow significantly faster than eyebrow hairs so monthly trimming is a must.
For a chic update
With an understated and classic appeal, the French Girl Brow method by Dr Surbhi Virmani, (£700 cosderm.co.uk), offers a new direction in brow tweaking. The two-pronged approach delivers the sort of straighter brow often sported by French stars such as Léa Seydoux, Eva Green and Lily-Rose Depp. This brow sits in a straighter horizontal line, a youthful and flattering shape that avoids an arched tail.
“The French Girl Brow works to lift the brow without looking peaky or surprised but also addresses the quality of the skin around the eyes too,” Virmani says. “First I use targeted ultrasound to help promote the production of collagen. I then carefully insert mono thread fibres, which contain a single PDO [polydioxanone] filament. These are made of the same material as dissolvable stitches but are not barbed like other threads so will not bobble under the delicate eyelid skin.” The threads work like a suture to pick up brows and lax skin. Patients should prepare for possible bruising and swelling for about a week post treatment but the effects last about 12-18 months.
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For tired eyes
Requiring no downtime, Dr Sebagh’s Ultralift Eye Facial Treatment (£180; facials@drsebagh.com), is a 30-minute pick-me-up that temporarily revitalises tired eyes. First the aesthetician cleanses the face and administers high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) waves. The eye area is often tricky to treat with HIFU due to the machine heads being large but Dr Sebagh has commissioned two special hand pieces to suit the shape of patient’s eye area. The first head targets the sides of eyes, increasing blood flow and stimulating collagen production for firmer, tighter skin, while the other works under the eye area to drain fluid (usually caused by periorbital oedema, a common issue caused by poor diet, late nights, alcohol, or allergies).
This is followed by facial massage around the eye area to improve circulation, relax the muscles and prepare the skin for Dr Sebagh’s own-brand eye serum and cream, which are loaded with peptides and hyaluronic acid. The effects are best seen about three to six weeks post treatment and for optimal results Dr Sebagh recommends three treatments paced about six weeks apart.
For a fashion tweak
In the new West End salon on Avery Row, the Blink Brow Bar chairs are upholstered in Liberty fabrics and the team offer a variety of on-trend grooming options (tints from £20; bbb-london.com).
“Brows are all about balance. It’s important to get thickness and length right to avoid tadpole brows, or a surprised look,” says the founder Vanita Parti. “Ombre brows, just like nails, are in demand, but rather than bleach brows, which can permanently damage the texture of eyebrow hair, I would suggest letting our team show you how to get the look with our Dream Brows Palette, which gives you two shades of brow powder that can be combined to give an ombre look. Try a lighter shade at the start of your eyebrows and then use the colour that compliments your brows best, from the arch to the tail.”
Brow lamination (£60), a 40-minute procedure that softens the hair follicle using a chemical treatment, has also become increasingly popular and works to redirect and set brow hairs to the desired shape so that you get the most fullness out of your natural growth. Unruly, coarse brows can be straightened and smoothed, thinning brows can be lifted to appear thicker, and gaps can be hidden. The results last about eight weeks.
