Whether you’re a casualty of early 2000s eyebrow trends or just don’t naturally have the bold, bushy brows that have been in vogue for the past few years, having thin eyebrows can be incredibly frustrating. If you’re scrolling through Instagram or just looking around your friend group and noticing that everybody has the fluffy brows of your dreams, knowing you just don’t have the brow hair required to shape your brows into your ideal look can really put a damper on your confidence.
Luckily, thin eyebrows aren’t the end of the line. There are definitely things you can try to help you boldly brow where you have never browed before.
Why Are Your Eyebrows Thin in the First Place?
As with most things, one of the first steps toward solving a problem is understanding it. First and foremost, if your brows have been thin your whole life, and your family photos are full of thin eyebrows and well-crafted arches, the answer may be simple: it could just be genetics! Like any other part of our appearance, what we inherit from our parents is one of the biggest deciding factors in what we will look like, and eyebrows are no different.
There are, however, other minor conditions and problems that can make your brows even thinner, or prevent them from growing in fully in the first place.
Not Getting the Right Nutrients
It’s possible that thin eyebrows —especially if you feel like you’re experiencing thinning of your hair elsewhere—could be due to nutrient deficiencies. Luckily, the vitamins that encourage healthy hair growth are pretty easy to work into a balanced diet.
If you’re not getting enough vitamin A or Zinc, your cellular growth might be lagging, and that can hinder the production of certain things your body needs for healthy hair growth. It’s also worth thinking about the amount of Biotin, Vitamin C, Iron, and Omega-3 Fatty Acids you’re getting in your diet. You can get these vitamins in minerals from all sorts of totally normal and natural foods that probably should be in your diet anyway!
Certain Skin Conditions
You probably already know if you’re struggling with one of these skin conditions, but some of them can actually interfere with proper hair growth—which is the part you may not have realized. The inflammation that Eczema or Psoriasis causes to your skin, for example, can interfere with proper hair growth, as can any particularly dry and flaky patches of skin.
Contact dermatitis can also be a problem when it comes to healthy hair growth! You’ll usually be super aware of these because contact dermatitis tends to burn or itch, so it’s hard to miss, but if you’ve been experiencing these symptoms around your brows and haven’t yet figured out the issue, it might be time to take a break from any brow or skincare products you usually apply there to make sure you’re not having a negative reaction to any of them, which can actually interfere with hair growth and contribute to thin eyebrows.
Over-Grooming
Another common culprit when it comes to thin eyebrows is simply overgrooming or overplucking. If you’re really dedicated to brow maintenance and habitually tweeze out any hair that grows out of place, or have a fixed appointment with your local waxer, this may be worth thinking about.
While grooming your brows is generally normal and harmless, consistent plucking and waxing over the years can be quite traumatic to your follicles, and can actually cause them to stop producing hair! If you think this might be the issue, it might feel alarming—how will you keep your brows in line but also give your skin a break?!
We’ll talk about some solutions to thin eyebrows in a sec, but if you need to give your brows some time to breathe, you can use concealer in a pinch to help disguise any seriously distracting hairs and also to soothe the appearance of any redness that might have cropped up as a result of your itchy tweezer finger.
Stress and Hormones
Although these are technically different issues, they can be related—stress can cause your hormone levels to fluctuate, so even if you think your issue is definitely your crazy schedule or high-pressure job, it still could actually be hormones.
Stress and anything that might get your hormone levels out of whack can contribute to hair loss. Your hormones can be affected by anything ranging from pregnancy to birth control, to something as potentially major as a thyroid imbalance.
If your hair loss has come on suddenly and unexpectedly, it’s definitely worth speaking to your doctor to see if there’s something larger at play you’ll need to see after… and if it ends up being stress, we think a spa day is the best prescription. Don’t you?
Aging
Aging is another common cause of thin eyebrows. Our hair starts to thin as a natural part of the aging process. Not only that, but your brow shape and the way they move when you make facial expressions can actually change as we age, too! It can definitely be a weird feeling if you’re unsatisfied with something in your appearance to look back at old pictures and realize that your brows used to look how you want them to look now, and wonder what’s changed.
The truth is, we’re always changing, and aging is a natural and beautiful process. But trading older and wiser for thin eyebrows doesn’t always feel like a great bargain, so while it is normal and basically everyone will experience it, there’s no shame in trying to improve your brow game no matter your age.
What Can You Do To Help With Thin Eyebrows?
1. Prevention
Your first question might be how you get your brows to grow back thicker, rather than just helping your thin brows with cosmetic solutions. While there are some ways to help encourage new growth in your brows, your best bet, really, is starting early and trying to prevent your brows from thinning in the first place.
That mostly means giving your eyebrows a break from time to time! Much like you need to take a week off after a couple of months of constantly refreshing gel or acrylic nails to make sure you don’t do any damage to your natural fingernails, if you’re a religious plucker or waxer, you’ll want to give your skin and follicles a little time to refresh on occasion. You can still trim them if you’re desperate to maintain your shape, just give the follicles a little vacation.
2. Diet and Supplements
If you’re trying to get your brows to thicken, making sure you’re getting a well-rounded dose of vitamins in your diet can be key. You’ll want to load up on green veggies and fatty fish or vegetarian sources of Omega-3s like avocado and nuts.
If your diet is otherwise working for you, however, you can also look to supplements. Because all of these nutrients are pretty common culprits when it comes to deficiencies in your skin or hair, there are all sorts of supplements available over the counter to get these skin and haircare superheroes. If you’re going for a blend of vitamins, we’d recommend doing a thorough read of the ingredients, to make sure it’s jam-packed with the good stuff and not just good advertising.
3. Brow Serums
You can also think about working an eyebrow serum into your daily routine! Like anything the promises life-changing results, you may be wondering if Brow Enhancement Serum actually works. While one swipe of serum isn’t suddenly going to take you from 90s teen icon to Cara Delvigne in 24 hours, as long as your expectations are realistic and you apply brow serum consistently, it can definitely make a big difference to your thin eyebrows.
4. Drawing Natural Hairstrokes
While you’re waiting for your brows to grow in naturally you probably just want to know how to get the look you want from your thin eyebrows. Good news: there are so many ways to get the fuller, thicker look you want without having to wait or seek out complicated treatments.
In addition to using brow serum on a regular basis, you can use cosmetics to help improve the appearance of your thin eyebrows. Our TatBrow® Microblade Pen is a great option for filling out your brows while avoiding potentially painful and expensive treatments like Microblading. It creates natural, hair-like strokes so you can effectively draw in the brows of your dreams while still giving off that woke-up-like-this vibe. We’d recommend going a shade or two lighter than your natural hair color if you want it to look natural, though of course, you can pick whatever color sparks joy.
If you want a bit more precision, or if you just want to do a little extra shaping once you’ve filled your brows in with a microblade, a Micro Precision Pen will help you create fine, individual strokes.
5. Tinted Brow Gel
Lastly, you’ll want to finish off your look with brow gel. If you feel like your brows could still do with a little thickening or darkening, Ultra Defining Brow Gel is the way to go. This amazing tool applies a tinted gel to your brows with a spoolie, so you can make sure every brow hair is working to its fullest potential. It works best if you first brush the gel in the opposite direction of your natural hair growth to make sure you’ve coated the hairs from every angle before brushing them into place.
If your other brow filling tools have done the job and you just want to make sure everything stays in place, our Ultra Hold Brow Gel will give it a clear coat and a hydrating, not stiff, hold that will lock in your look no matter what your day has in store. If you’re more of a fluffy brow kinda gal as opposed to angled and structured, you can brush the hair upwards with our clear gel to give the appearance of lush, thick brows.
In Conclusion
If your vision board is full of thick brows, having thin eyebrows can be a serious blow to your self-esteem. Before you think about treatment, you’ll want to have a think about what might be causing your brows to thin in the first place, and speak to a doctor or dermatologist if you think your thin brows might be due to an imbalance, dietary issue, or skin condition to be sure that when you treat the problem, you’re really treating it correctly.
While we think all brows are beautiful, and even the thinnest brows can work with confidence, it’s totally possible to take steps to get the bold brows of your dreams. Whether you’re most interested in more long-term treatment to encourage your brows to regrow or you’re happy with a new makeup routine to give the appearance of fuller, thicker brows, there are many different ways to get the look you want!
Get the Look
Whether you want to try to encourage your brows to grow back or just want to get the look of lush, natural brows, here are some of our favorite products to get this look below!
- Brow Enhancement Serum
- Ultra Hold Brow Gel
- Ultra Defining Brow Gel
- Micro Blade Brow Pen
- Micro Precision Pen
Sources:
Changes in Eyebrow Position and Movement with Aging | Archives of Plastic Surgery
5 Ways to Get Overplucked Eyebrows to Grow Back | Health Essentials
Stress and Hormones | Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism