The Mirror Mistake You're Making When Plucking Your Eyebrows

Tweezing your brows is almost a rite of passage. Whether you were taught by your mother, sister, or bestie, or learned yourself via Youtube, at one point or another, you've probably found yourself sitting in front of the mirror, plucking away at your stray eyebrow hairs. While some of you may have moved on to waxing or threading, if you're someone who still plucks your eyebrows today, there's one mistake you're likely to be making when plucking your eyebrows. And it involves your mirror.

As celebrity eyebrow specialist Joey Healy told Glamour, "By viewing your brows too close up, you lose perspective on how much hair you've already taken off." In other words, you're probably standing way too close to your mirror when you should actually be at "an arm's-length distance from the mirror." Tracy Taylor, Anastasia Beverly Hills brow specialist, agrees, explaining to Total Beauty, "It's impossible to get the right proportions when you're looking at your face so closely," adding, "You may end up ruining the arch." Yikes!

So, how exactly do you get the perfect arch at home? According to Jared Bailey (via Byrdie), celebrity brow artist and Benefit Cosmetics' international spokesperson, the simplest way to define your arch is "by brushing your brow hairs upward from start to arch, and in the direction of your hair growth from arch to end." Speaking to Byrdie, celebrity makeup artist Neil Scibelli added, "Have your brow grooming person (or yourself, if you do your own) take off just a few hairs in the lowest, center area of your brows. This will definitely give you an arch."

And remember, you need to take it seriously slow. "Take it slow, make it something you do on a lazy Sunday night — the more time you allot to getting comfortable shaping your brows, the better," celebrity makeup artist Vincent Oquendo told InStyle. "Pluck no more than two hairs at a time before stepping back and evaluating the shape," he added, noting "It is easy to get pluck-happy and take too much." When it comes to tweezing your eyebrows, less is most definitely more.