I Found the 1 Product That Doubles the Size of My Brows

Big, bold, bushy brows are as coveted right now as the It Girl who made them a thing (hey, Cara Delevingne, I'm talking to you). But in the late '90s, when I was a teenager, brows were as waif-like as the supermodels that papered my walls. My friends and I would rough-brush ours from side to side, hoping to uproot a few hairs in the process. We'd trim them with scissors, thin out random patches with tweezers, and fine-tune our arches with precision. At some point, the brows just stopped growing back. 

Fast-forward to today, and I'm now on an elaborate quest to fake my way back to bushy. I try anything I can get my hands on — often multiple products at once. And from a distance, most things look fine. But up close, the results are sketchy at best. Here's a look at what different products look like when I have them on:

Brow Pencil

Everything about them looks uneven — the length, shape, even position on my face — thanks to my shaky hand.

Brow Powder

Despite being a perfect brow match, the pigment makes the skin along the tops of my brows look like they've been spray-tanned by an Oompa Loompa.

Brow Mascara

I have to preface this by saying that the only thing that's ever ​truly looked as natural as my teenage brows was professional brow tinting. Using vegetable dye and a small brush, a technician tints the tiny baby hairs that surround your brows, making them taller, wider, and fuller. I tried it a few times but quit; it just fades too quickly to justify the salon time and cost. So when I heard a friend comparing Yves Saint Laurent Couture Brow to the treatment? I couldn't get to the Cosmo beauty closet's brow bin fast enough! 

Like professional brow tinting, this "brow mascara" allows you to tint the baby hairs surrounding your brows with a teeny-tiny mascara wand, bulking up bare spots. It's so easy, you can get results like I did in about 30 seconds (swear!). 

It took a few tries to perfect my application, so here are some tips to remember:

• Wipe the brush's bristles on the tip of the mascara tube or a tissue to prevent accidental globs.
• Inner brows are typically fuller than outer brows, so start mid-brow and work outward, building bare spots first (it's easier to add then take away).
• On that note, do your brows before you start the rest of your makeup. That way, if you mess up, you don't have to take everything off and start from scratch.
• Brow mascara is gel-like (read: wet), so it's best to sketch lightly, create your shape, and let it dry. Do not rub or run a brow brush through hairs until they are completely dry.

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