Some of you might have never thought about it, but grooming your eyebrows, is a thing and it’s done by many men. So in this post I will be looking at some of the different methods for how to trim eyebrows, men style!
Let’s face it, we are not all blessed with perfect eyebrows and even those who are will eventually need to start grooming them as they get older and their eyebrow hairs start getting out of control.
What I found when I entered my 30’s, is that all of a sudden I started getting these hairs that didn’t stop growing.
Now trimming those men eyebrows can be extremely tricky. There aren’t many hairs up there so the margin of error is very high because one small mistake will leave a very evident mark smack bang in the middle of your forehead.
Why Should a Man Trim Eyebrows?
Probably most men don’t want to be shaping their eyebrows, I mean, it’s not the most macho of things, I know. However sometimes leaving your eyebrows in their natural state is really not a viable option.
In their younger years most men don’t have to worry about grooming their eyebrows. I remember those days. Mine had the perfect natural shape , so much so that people actually commented on good they looked.
As you get older, however your body changes and so does the hair on every part of your body. The hair thickness and the hair growth rate seem to start getting out of control and I noticed that this started happening to me also over the last few years.
I’m sure you’ve come across men who’ve got those bushy eyebrows that are just out of control or maybe men with a uni-brow (that one continuous eyebrow stretching over both eyes without a gap in the middle).
Now think about it for a second. What happens when you meet these people?
Most of us get distracted by those hairs on top of their eyes. You just can’t keep your eyes off them. You’re thinking, wow, look at that bush on his eyes. Is this guy angry or something, why is he frowning?
Well in most cases he’s not grumpy. That’s just the way his eyebrows make him look.
So do you want to be that guy?
The Actor with the Eyebrows!
Let’s look at some famous characters that have bushy eyebrows. We’ve got Old Bert, from Bert with Bert and Ernie – he always looked grumpy with his uni-brow.
What about the dad from the American Pie movies. How funny was that guy. He is actually referred to as the actor with the eyebrows!
So, to get to the point, the reason you should care about how your eyebrows look, is that it can affect the way that you communicate with the world and how people perceive you.
The good thing is that this is an easy fix.
Eyebrow grooming is something that you can easily do at home. Heck if you don’t want to do it yourself, ask your barber.
Most men never ask their barber, but your barber can and will actually trim them if you ask him. And don’t forget to ask him to tackle you ear hairs also, once you’re at it!
I personally prefer to do the job myself because, as I already mentioned, there is no room for error when grooming these little patches of hair and I just don’t trust anyone.
That said, plenty of men who try doing this on their own, do not really know how to do this properly. Take a look at the biggest mistakes men make when trying to trim their eyebrows.
How To Trim Men’s Eyebrows – 5 Methods
Pluck the hairs
This is the most painful solution, but it’s quite handy, especially to eliminate those small hairs in-between the two eyebrows that seem to be forming a small uni-brow over time.
The good thing is that by plucking the hairs, you are using a more long term strategy, which means you will only need to do it about once a month, since the hair is plucked from the base and therefore it will have to re-grow from the root.
Now you might notice that within the first twenty-four hours, you will have a bit of redness in the area you plucked. So, don’t do it right before you have an event, leave a 24 hour time-lag before you pluck your eyebrows and any important outing you might have scheduled.
I find plucking to be a very simple system, albeit a little bit painful. It’s the best way to prevent a uni-brow, however it’s also a good solution to eliminate any random stray hairs that are growing way outside your eyebrow frame.
Now, what type of tweezers to use for plucking your men eyebrows?
I recommend, two types of tweezers, the rounded tip and the angled edge tweezers.
Both of these will work. I like to use the ones made by Denco but you should obviously used your preferred brand.
Just make sure you’ve got a good pair of tweezers that will enable you to control the plucking without unnecessary pain (that’s where you feel the pain but you don’t actually eliminate the hair!).
Trim the Eyebrows
Trimming is really the best option to groom your eyebrows.
In essence all you really need are scissors and a small comb.
Use the comb and brush it backwards on the eyebrows. Notice those random hairs that stick out of the comb hairs and trim those pieces with the scissors.
Quick Tip:
Since you’re working close to your eyes, you should avoid using pointed scissors and instead get yourself scissors that have a rounded tip.
A safer solution, instead of scissors, would be to use an electric nose and eyebrow hair trimmer.
To make the job easier (and safer) I recently started using the Norelco 5000 trimmer instead of a pair of scissors.
I like this electric trimmer because it’s got this special tool with an actual guard. This means that you don’t even have to use the comb but just set the guard size to your preferred level and pass the trimmer over your eyebrows.
Now, this does not mean that you can just go ahead and trim blindly without paying any attention to what you’re doing. As I found out personally, you can actually push this too tightly which will result in excessive trimming. Which means I basically ended up with almost no hair over my eyes!!
So, make sure you’re controlling it.
If you already own a nose hair trimmers, you can actually use it to trim your eyebrows.
The rounded blade trimmers, like the ones made by Wahl can do the job, however in this case I would recommend you still use a comb and trim over the comb since most nose hair trimmer do not have guards which are appropriate for eyebrow trimming.
The above two methods are the only eyebrow grooming methods I recommend because they’re practical and you can easily do it yourself at home.
The next alternatives are a bit more complicated and extreme, but for the sake of completeness I will dedicate a few words on these methods of eyebrow grooming.
Waxing or Threading the Eyebrows
If you have to go down the waxing option, make sure you work with someone who knows what they’re doing. If you’re going to try and wax your eyebrows yourself, be very careful, especially if you never waxed any part of your body before.
Probably best to talk with your wife or girlfriend, as she’s most likely used waxing products before and convince them to do it for you. Alternatively I would suggest you get these professionally done at a salon.
With regards to threading, this is not that popular, and probably most of you have never even heard of it. So in order to help you visualize what we’re talking about, check out the below clip;
As you can see it is quite painful, but it could be a method for you to get rid of some of the excess eyebrow hair.
Just to be clear, once we get into waxing or threading, all of a sudden, we’re getting into shaping the eyebrows and not just maintaining them.
I do not believe a man needs to fully shape his eyebrows. Maybe you want to remove the uni-brow, but you don’t want to have a really sharp point and angled edges. That’s not what we’re looking for.
Shaving the Eyebrows
First off, you don’t want to be using straight razors on your eyebrows, you don’t want to be using a cartridge razor either. Trust me you don’t want to accidentally shave them off.
Now, you might say, I’m only shaving the outer parts, just to shape them; and the reason why that’s still a bad idea is that you’re going to get the stubble.
Apart from that, it’s soon going to come right back and it’s just going to look odd. It’s going to draw attention to itself because of the contrast.
Conclusion
We’ve seen the methods how to trim eyebrow. Men can do it as much as women and it’s quite OK.
I think shaving your eyebrows is going overboard. You are a man, it’s okay to have bushier eyebrows, but it’s better to trim it and maybe do some plucking, but once you get into all the other methods, like waxing, threading, and especially shaving, you’ve gone overboard and you have to be extremely careful.
I would love to hear from you in the comments below. Do you groom your eyebrows? If so please leave your tips and tricks that can help our readers.
