How to trim men's eyebrows

From an evolutionary perspective, eyebrows are still very much needed for performing their main task of keeping things out of our eyes. From an appearance perspective though, we have two clumps of hair growing out of our face.

Plus, eyebrows kind of do their own thing, and it’s weird. They are a different type of hair from a beard, and they are not a part of the hair on top of our heads. But, just because we don’t quite understand them, it’s no excuse for ignoring them.

Your facial hair grooming routine should not just involve shaving your chinny-chin-chin or trimming your beard. After all, your eyebrows are part of your face so you should consider trimming and cutting them properly too.

Men also have these things called hormones, and as we get older, hormones change. While women get to deal with menopause, men get to deal with hair growth. While those two things are not at all comparable, our point is that as men age, they will have more hair growth all over their bodies. This means hairy areas that were maybe less obvious when you were younger are going to be more of an issue as you get older.

We’ve all seen the old guy with the crazy eyebrows — let’s not be that person when we get older. In fact, let’s not be that person now. Take a moment, look in the mirror, zoom in on your potentially bushy eyebrows and start considering the possibilities of brow hair removal.

We have a few steps with tips and tricks for trimming your eyebrows so nobody starts running after you with a pair of tweezers. (That’s also a sign that you’ve neglected your eyebrows for too long.)

Trimming steps

Eyebrow trimming is all about just keeping things neat and under control. For some of you, eyebrow maintenance might involve a simple tweeze here and there. For others with bushy eyebrows or other issues, this might involve a little more hair removal.

Don’t go crazy.

When you zoom in on your brow line, it’s tempting to just start removing pieces. You might even have a female friend tell you once you start tweezing eyebrows you will have the urge to pluck EVERYTHING. There’s a reason a lot of women need to draw on their eyebrows in their 40s. They overdid it in their 20s, and now they have no eyebrows. Let’s not ruin your future eyebrow shape.

Step 1 - Grooming tools

Eyebrows are small, so you need smaller tools for trimming and shaping this smaller area:

1. tweezers
2. a small mustache comb
3. a pair of small scissors

Check out The Shears 2.0 package if you need a place to start.

Step 2 - Where eyebrows SHOULD be

When looking in a mirror, take a comb or a pencil (something that is straight) and hold it in the middle of your left nostril pointing up. This is where your left eyebrow line starts — or should start. Then, go to your right nostril. This is where your right eyebrow should start. Do you have any noticeable hair in the middle?

Step 3 - The middle

Most guys have a few stray hairs in the middle that are a little darker than the rest. For those situations, tweezing is sufficient. Using clean tweezers, pull out the hair going in the direction of the grain. Done.

If you are someone closer to a unibrow situation, we recommend a waxing kit or making an appointment for a professional wax or threading.

Shaving eyebrow areas tends to ruin the natural shape of the area. Please don’t make that mistake and attempt to use your shaver as an eyebrow trimmer, you'll regret it after one wrong stroke.

Waxing involves heating actual wax, applying it to an area, and then covering it with a cloth strip that sticks to the wax and is pulled off — taking the wax and any hair stuck with it. This leaves a smooth surface and grabs hair by the root, making it less likely to return quickly (overtime waxing actually makes hair lighter/appear less frequently).

Threading is a technique in which a skilled professional uses two pieces of string and pulls them together at such a fast rate that it captures and removes hairs. This is very similar to waxing, but does not involve something sticking to your skin. This is not something you should try at home, leave it to the professionals of the eyebrow shaping world.

Step 4 - Brush and snip

The idea here is that you are identifying stragglers or hairs that are too long. With a comb, brush your eyebrow hair up towards your forehead slowly. You should start to see where the majority of the hair is lengthwise and where a few hairs stick out and don’t match. Use scissors to snip those long hairs at the base of the comb so they fall in with the others. Uniformity is the goal.

Then, brush your eyebrows following the direction of the hair. Anything out of place? Snip.

What you do to one side do to the other.

Step 5 - Volume

If you also think your eyebrows are too bushy, trimming them with a guard is also a best practice. Start with a short trim with the grain and then zoom out and assess. You can always trim more. What you do to one side do to the other.

Step 6 - Clean and slick

Do you notice any darker hairs outside of the defined eyebrow space? Those can be addressed with tweezers as well.

The idea behind eyebrow “styling” is that hair stays in the same direction. This is done easier when the hair is wet, so after a shower or washing your face, just take your finger and run it over your eyebrows. This flattens the hair, pushing them in the right direction. There’s also eyebrow gel if you want to get fancy.

There are actually professional services for men that do eyebrow grooming, so if you’re really nervous, schedule an appointment. See what your eyebrows can look like, and then go home and replicate.

Above all else. When you’re taking care of your eyebrows, make sure you don’t shave one off. We really wish this warning wasn’t necessary, but it is. You’ve been warned, there are plenty of other ways to deal with your bushy eyebrows.