How to Tint Your Eyebrows at Home

While you can certainly opt for a professional eyebrow tinting treatment at a salon, you can also create the look at home. Try CLIO Tinted Tattoo Kill Brow + Eyebrow Shaping Kit ($25, insiderbeauty.com), which contains a felt pen that temporarily tints brows from five to seven days. We also like Wunder2 WunderBrow ($22, wunder2.com), which combines hair-like fibers with a pigment gel that fastens onto skin and hair for a few days.

Makeup artist Teri Kang, who performs brow tinting regularly on clients, shares her method for perfecting a longer-lasting brow tint at home. “The tint lasts a couple weeks and makes it much easier to fill in your brows—and on makeup-free days, your brows will still look refined,” says Kang. Here, a before and after photo of one of Kang’s clients, where you can see what a difference tinting makes:

Photograph by Teri Kang

What You’ll Need:

Barrier Cream
Try: Vaseline ($4, target.com) or Desert Essence Tea Tree Oil Skin Ointment ($7, desertessence.com)

Eyebrow Tint
Try: Godefroy Instant Eyebrow Tint Permanent Eyebrow Color Kit ($13, walgreens.com) or Roux Lash Brow Tint ($40, sallybeauty.com)

Tint Remover
Try: Roux Clean Touch Haircolor Stain Remover ($4, sallybeauty.com)

Clean Mascara Wand

Synthetic Lip Brush

Cotton Swabs and Pads

Steps:

1. Apply barrier cream to the skin around the eyebrow area to protect it from tint.

2. Mix the brow tint solution according to manufacturer’s instructions.

3. Apply the tint to eyebrows in two stages. First, apply tint with your lip brush to both eyebrows. Then, comb through brows with a clean mascara wand to mimic hair-like strokes for a more natural effect—particularly on the inner part of the brow, says Kang. Work quickly, and complete each step on both brows before moving on to the next one for the most even processing time.

4. Clean up excess tint around your brows with a cotton swab dipped in tint remover. It’s ok to leave a tiny bit of tint around the eyebrow to grab any fine baby hairs, says Kang.

5. Leave tint on for the desired time and effect. While one to two minutes offers bare minimum tinting, up to 10 minutes may be needed to conceal gray or to achieve deeply tinted brows. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions exactly for your preferred color result.

6. Remove the tint with dampened cotton pads. If there is any slight staining or shadowing around the brows, Kang says it should be gone by the next morning.

And one final note: If you’re tweezing, waxing, or threading, it’s always best to tint before shaping your brows.