Keep Your Eyebrows On

As the skinny-brow trend of the 1990s gave way to today’s preferred bushy look, one thing became clear: Powders and pencils were an OK fix for overplucked arches, but they weren’t a lasting—or efficient—solution. This may explain why beauty editors and stylists are so excited about microblading, a form of tattooing that mimics individual hairs.

The treatment gained fame recently when Lena Dunham wrote in Vogue about having her brows done; she credited Dominique Bossavy, a cosmetic artist in Beverly Hills, with giving her a pair of perfect, new “face friends.” Bossavy says her method, which involves custom-mixing pigments, takes three sessions: In the first, she shapes a flattering outline, then starts to color it in. “I always go very light,” she explains. The second session is when most of the work happens, and the third is for fine-tuning. The bottom line, she says: Clients “aren’t going to look like the Joker.” The opposite, in fact, is more likely, because the technique uses less ink than standard tattooing. The downside is the brows last only one to three years.