What is the best for sparse eyebrows?

Perfectly proportioned, bold and strongly defined eyebrows are still a top makeup trend. No wonder: thick eyebrows make your face look younger. That's why the 80s and 90s fashion for thin eyebrows has become a thing of the past. However, many women, after months of plucking their eyebrows in the name of old trends, now struggle with growing thick and lush eyebrows. Are your natural eyebrows sparse and almost invisible? No more! Use makeup tricks and learn the best makeup techniques for thin brows.

How to thicken your eyebrows?

First of all, you should know that even the thinnest and most sparse eyebrows can be restored! There are special thickening eyebrow serums promoting eyebrow growth, such as the iconic Nanobrow Serum, valued by women all over the world. Regular use of the serum makes the brow hairs start to grow back and your arches become thicker. If you're dreaming of lush and thick eyebrows - there's no better way than a good eyebrow serum to improve their density and appearance in just a few weeks!

How to volumize your eyebrows?

The best method of thickening eyebrows that works instantly is good brow makeup. If you want to add definition to your eyebrows and thicken them using makeup, various eyebrow products come to your aid. Nowadays, the cosmetics market has grown tremendously in the field of brow makeup and there is a wide variety of available products: eyebrow pencils, microblading pens and markers, brow powders, eyebrow wax, brow mascaras, gels, pomades and even special soap that shapes the brows the way you like.

A step-by-step thin eyebrow makeup tutorial

1 Prepare your eyebrows: brush them with a spoolie.

2. Using eyebrow pomade and a slanted brush, outline your eyebrows. Remember that the lower edge should be accentuated stronger. For this job, you can also use a soft and well-pigmented eyebrow pencil. Consider eyebrow mapping to define the correct shape of your eyebrows. With thin eyebrows, the contour should go beyond the natural hairline to add volume.

3. Once the contour is outlined, create hair-like strokes to fill in sparse areas using an eyebrow pen or a pomade.

4. Now fill your eyebrows with color. Brow pomade or brow powders work best here. Start from the inner edge, near the corner of the eye, and work your way toward the arch.

5. Remember that the inner edge should be lighter than the tail: using a brush or a spoolie, gently brush out the excess cosmetic from the middle part (the upper eyebrow line) and at the beginning of the arch.

6. Accentuate the tail, creating a slightly sharper and more pronounced line. Remember not to make it too sharp: maintain the correct eyebrow mapping.

7. Set the brow hairs: using a transparent or tinted eyebrow gel, gently brush the hairs, giving them the final, desired shape. You can brush them upward for best results.

Done! You have just done your brow-filling makeup.

TIP

If you are filling in your eyebrows using brow powders, use a kit containing wax and two powders. They enable creating natural-looking gradient look, a soft transition of color from lighter to darker. You can mix and blend good quality brow powders to ensure the effect is subtle and the final brow makeup looks natural.

What works as brow-fillers?

There are cosmetics particularly useful for thin and sparse brow makeup. First of all, it is a pomade, which provides 100% coverage, fills the entire arches but also allows you to mimic individual hairs to cover any sparse areas. Eyebrow pencils and special microblading pens create ultra-thin and precise lines and help add depth to your arches.

Remember!
Even the thinnest and sparsest eyebrows must be shaped properly. Eyebrow mapping is the basis of eyebrow makeup. You can read more about how to properly define the right shape of your eyebrows HERE.

There are countless eyebrow pencils available, making it difficult to narrow down which one is right for you. That’s why we enlisted our trusted InStyle editors to test 38 of the most popular eyebrow pencils. We defined our brows with these top-rated formulas, keeping each one's texture, ease of use, color payoff, and shade range top of mind. Ultimately, we narrowed down that extensive list to the seven best brow pencils that seamlessly enhanced our arches.

If you want to lengthen the tail of your brows, create more of a peak in your arch, or fill in a sparse spot, New York City-based celebrity brow artist Joey Healy says that the easiest, most effective product to use is an eyebrow pencil.

How many products do you use to define your eyebrows? I use three: A powder, eyebrow gel , and a spoolie to blend it all together. That may seem like a lot, but there are countless other arch-enhancing products, ranging from gels and pomades to pencils.

Along with the versatile design, we were equally impressed by the shade range. With 10 colors, including an often overlooked gray hue, we’re confident that most people would be able to find the perfect match. Though, we did notice that the lighter colors didn’t have the best pigment payoff. Shades like Honey Blonde and Taupe needed to be applied with extra pressure to get our desired end look.

The thick side of the pencil filled in our bald spots, while the thin side helped to sculpt our arches and add feathered strokes for fuller defined brows. Plus, the built-in spoolie brush blended everything for cohesive, snatched brows.

If you’re just beginning your brow journey, we recommend choosing a pencil that can sculpt, define, and fill in your brows with minimal effort. Through our testing, we found this Kosas pick to be the most user-friendly, with its multipurpose triangle-shaped tip.

The dual-sided tip allowed us to fill and define our brows without much effort.

With such a precise tip, we worried that the formula would snap during application. One stroke proved otherwise: It glided across our brows and left a rich yet natural looking pigment without any mishaps. When not in use, though, we do suggest retracting the tip back into the pencil. This protects the formula and prevents it from potentially falling out.

When it came to drawing hairlike strokes, the Charlotte Tilbury Brow Cheat Pencil outperformed all the brow pencils we tested. The pointed, slightly angled tip made it easy to draw on the tiniest hairs, and the small spoolie allowed us to smooth everything out afterwards. The end result had a similar effect to microblading — at a fraction of the cost.

That said, because of the larger tip, we had a difficult time creating hair-like strokes. Ultimately, we consider this a stellar pick for thicker brows that need a little extra oomph, but thin brows should opt for something a bit more precise.

The dual-ended pencil, which featured a thicker angled tip and a fluffy blending brush, efficiently filled in our brows, covering sparse spots for more uniform arches. Plus, once the formula set our brows looked perfect for the entire day — we didn’t experience any smudging, and our eyebrows still looked fresh by the time we were ready to take our makeup off.

If you have thick brows, you may not need a ton of help, but having a trusty brow pencil on hand to even out your arches can be a total game changer. During our lab test, we found that the Fill & Fluff Eyebrow Pencil Pomade from NYX worked like a charm to fill in the gaps between our thick brow hairs.

This pencil is great for those with thick brows who are looking to fill in sparse areas.

Despite the slim design, this pencil packed on the pigment. When we initially filled in our brows the color was way too dark, but going in with a lighter hand remedied the issue, and the handy spoolie on the other side seamlessly blended the color for an overall natural look.

L’Oréal Paris consistently churns out phenomenal makeup products at affordable prices , yet one of the most underrated is the Brow Stylist Definer. We found that the ultra-fine tip — which is 0.5 millimeters to be exact — was the ideal size for replicating the look of tiny brow hairs. The slim pencil also fit nicely between our fingers, giving us plenty of control to define and fill in our brows.

It can be too pigmented — be sure to use a light hand when applying.

Aside from adding the ideal amount of pigment, the formula also helps condition and promote brow growth over time thanks to nourishing grapeseed oil and vitamin E. Truthfully, it was difficult to pinpoint a con, we wish the color range was more expansive. With only five shades to choose from, many people will have to miss out on this stellar product.

We have particularly thick brows with a few sparse spots, and this pencil quickly evened out our arches, making them look fuller. For such an affordable pick, we were pleasantly surprised by the color payoff, too. We only needed to apply slight pressure while filling out our brows to get a rich pigment. The handy spoolie on the other side made it easy to diffuse the color, so our brows looked defined but still natural.

Between the price point (under $5!) and the creamy smudge-proof formula, this budget eyebrow pencil swfitly earned top marks during our test. The dual-ended precision liner and spoolie duo allowed us to tame, shape, and define our brows in seconds.

For under $5, we were able to shape, tame, and define our brows with this dual-ended pencil.

We were also impressed with this pencil’s shade range: With 12 options to choose from, it has the most variety of all the products we tested. We do wish that the creamy formula was waterproof, but we still found it to be extremely long-lasting. Our brows stayed perfectly intact until it was time to remove our makeup at the end of the day.

While not as thin as the Brow Wiz , we found that the slanted triangular tip of this pencil was extremely versatile. Beyond seamlessly drawing on soft, hairlike strokes, we were also able to use this to shade in sparse areas of our brows with minimal effort. Because of the duality, we consider this pencil ideal for all types of brows, including thin and patchy arches .

Anastasia Soare knows brows. Aside from being responsible for JLo's snatched eyebrows, she also is the mastermind behind her eponymous brand, Anastasia Beverly Hills. In our lab test, we tried two of the brand’s best-selling brow pencils, but the Brow Definer reigned supreme.

Our Testing Process

After researching the top-rated eyebrow pencils on the market and asking makeup artists for their expert recommendations, we spent 30 hours putting the 38 of most popular eyebrow pencils to the test in our Manhattan-based lab. Our team of InStyle editors filled in and defined their brows with each formula, analyzing the pigment, ease of application, texture, and shade range of each. We also judged how brows looked overall. At the end of the trial, we gathered insights and narrowed down our list to the top performing brow pencils. 

What to Keep in Mind

Tip Shape

To avoid breakage and achieve a more precise look, consider a retractable pencil with a fine tip. "Big chunky pencils or ones that need to be sharpened can be inconsistent," Healy says. "It's easier to manipulate a pencil with a retractable tip." And, according to Professional makeup artist Kelli Anne Sewell, pencils with slanted tips offer more versatility (think: filling in and drawing on hairs) than slimmer counterparts. We particularly like Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Definer Triangular Brow Pencil for its slanted tip that is still precise enough to create hair like strokes as well as define the arches.

Shade

According to Healy, it's best to match your brow pencil shade with your eyebrow color, not your hair color. "For example, a lot of blondes who are very blonde have darker brows," he explains. "In this case, match the brow pencil to the dark brow color instead of the golden blonde hair color." This makes for a more cohesive look. Kosas Brow Pop Clean Dual-Action Defining Brow Pencil offers 10 shades ranging from light blondes and grays to a true black.

Your Questions, Answered

How can you use an eyebrow pencil to fill in brows?

"You only need a little bit of product to make short strokes, just in the areas that need it most," Healy advises. "Use a spoolie afterwards to generously blend and buff that color into the brow."

There's no need to fill in the darkest parts of your brow, just use the pencil on sparse areas. Sewell agrees, sharing that to achieve natural-looking brow strokes, follow the direction that your hairs grow in. "Start at the root of your brow with a light, flicking motion in the direction of the growth," she says.

How can you make your eyebrows look symmetrical with an eyebrow pencil?

Healy recommends taking a picture of your face to objectively see where you're starting. "I like to work on the better brow first, and then use that as a guideline for the brow that is less balanced," he says. "If one tail is a little short, you can lengthen it. If one peak is a little flat, you give it more of a point."

Oftentimes, however, achieving a perfectly symmetrical look is unrealistic. "I actually prefer for brows not to be totally symmetrical as it accentuates each person's natural beauty," Sewell says. "I do my brows looking at a far away mirror to make sure they complement each other. They don't need to be perfectly alike."

How can you find the right eyebrow pencil color to match your eyebrows?

If you're between two colors, Healy suggests going with the slightly lighter one. "You don't want your brows to be too dark. If anything, I'd rather see a brow that's unfilled than a brow that is way too dark because it looks inauthentic," he says.

"Find a brow pencil that matches the tone of your hair, whether it be warm, neutral or cool." Sewell explains. Unless you're a redhead, pencils with cool undertones are likely your best bet. "Cool undertones help make the brow look more natural since it mimics the hairs' true shadow."

What is InStyle Picks?

Did you notice the InStyle Picks seal of approval at the top of this story? That means our team of testers has reviewed every product on this list using a unique methodology to ensure it's really worth your time, money, and attention. We may get samples for free to try but we never promise positive (or any!) coverage in exchange. Put simply: InStyle picks are products we love, and we've put them to the test to be sure you will too.

Why Shop With Us

Caitlyn Martyn is a commerce writer for InStyle, where she covers skincare, makeup, and fashion. With expert insight from a makeup artist and a brow expert, she compiled insights from our in-house testers, poured over product specifications and rounded up our top picks for this story. Caitlyn has experience researching, testing and writing about beauty products. She has tried tons of different brow pencils from several of the above brands, including Charlotte Tilbury, Kosas, NYX and L'Oréal Paris.

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