I want my eyebrows to be DARKER. They are much too light, and I find when I get them tinted at the salon, it makes a real difference in the way I look.
But it’s $15 each time (at least) and after a week or two, the tint fades.
So I thought I would do it myself at home, but I can’t find a do-it-yourself method in the drugstore.
Would hair dye be all right? Even at $7/$8 a box, it would be cheaper and more convenient than going to the salon! I’m thinking if I’m careful, it should be all right, especially since I’m going darker so no peroxide or ammonia would be involved.
Or do any Dopers know of a product I could get that would do the trick?
This is not a do-it-yourself type project. The reason drugstores don’t sell brow tinting products, and the reason every haircolor you can buy in a drugstore has huge warnings not to use the product on you brows is 'cus you can go blind.
Not in a “Don’t wack-off, you’ll go blind” sort of way, but in a “putting hazardous chemicals in your eyes, you’ll go bling” sort of way.
DON’T DO THIS - IT’S A VERY, VERY BAD IDEA!!!
Also, should anyone come in here and suggest that they do it and haven’t had any trouble, I’m forced to repeat:
DON’T DO THIS - IT’S A VERY, VERY BAD IDEA!!!
Ahem.
Now, if I may be so bold - why don’t you try and eyebrow pencil or powder tint. You get darker brows and the chance of blindness is almost nil, assuming you can stop yourself from poking yourself in the eye with the sharpened pencil.
Not trying to be difficult at all, but it’s hard for me to understand how putting a tiny amount of haircolour onto a Q-tip and then applying it to my eyebrow is the same as putting “hazardous chemicals in my eyes!”.
It’s not my eyeLASHES, just the BROWS that I want to tint. If estheticians can do it, why can’t I?
The reason I don’t want to use pencil or powder is I don’t want to deal with smudges, applications, etc - I just want something I can spend 2 minutes on, once a month or so. Plus pencils and powders look so … fake.
bughunter - my mother has done the permanent makeup (i.e. tattooing) on her eyebrows and it looks HORRIBLE and fake and VERY old-lady-ish. (No offense to your wife’s friends - perhaps they had a better artist than she did).
I get my hair colored at the salon every 6-8 weeks. My stylist just daubs some of the same color stuff she’s using on my hair right on to my eyebrows while she’s doing my hair. She leaves it on for about 15-20 mins or so, then just wipes it off with a damp cloth. It works great. She doesn’t charge me any extra.
If I were you, I would first ask at a beauty supply store if they carry (or even if there is such thing) as permanent eyebrow dye. If there isn’t, I would go ahead and try regular old hair dye…just be careful. I would try using an old make up brush or even buy a really cheap one as opposed to a q-tip though.
Yes, well I and the good folks at Revlon who train us Cosmetecians say, without fail:
THIS IS A REALLY, REALLY BAD IDEA!! DON’T DO IT
However, as I suspected, at least one person chose to ignore this.
Anyhow - STAINZ - don’t do it. If you want natural get yourself some brow powder and put it on with a stiff angle brush - you’ll look lovely and natural.
And in case you were unclear on my original point, let me repeat it:
DO NOT EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, USE DRUGSTORE HAIR DIE ANYWHERE NEAR YOUR EYES
Ahem. BTW - the products typically used in salons are NOT the same as home products, despite what some folks will tell you. Home products contain metals which provide the color. They are not eye safe. In fact, they are decidedly eye UNsafe.
How would you keep the Qtip method from dying the skin under the brows? I’m trying to figure how this’d work and I keep coming up with mental pictures that are worse than the permanent tattooed type old lady stuff you’re trying to avoid in the first place.
**Queen Tonya ** - The esthetician I used to go to (she moved to Edmonton, damn her!!!) used a q-tip I think, just to lightly stroke it onto the hairs.
Most dye doesn’t dye the skin itself, just the hair. I know hair dye acts this way anyways, as long as you wipe it off as soon as you can!
Alice - no matter how beautifully I apply powder or whatever, the next time I rub my eyes or my brow, the shit will be all over the place. I want beautiful eyebrows when I wake up in the morning, on weekends when I wear no other makeup, ALL OF THE TIME!
I’ve heard quite often that hairstylists will dye brows with hair dye, as Rhiannon mentioned. What is the difference? What is the exact danger, if one is very careful? Hair dye is quite thick and goopy, it’s not like it runs all over the place.
I have mine dyed in a full-service salon/spa. They also do the waxing. I know that if I have them tinted with vegetable dye (which is probably what your esthetician is using if it wears off so quickly), it onlyl lasts about three weeks. With dye, it lasts about five or six.
My advice to you is to find a salon that does DYE rather than tint. Good luck.
The hair dye that is used in salons is NOT the same as the product that you buy at a drugstore.
It should be noted that cosmetic companies are very keen to make $$. Additionally, it should be noted that cosmeticians generally earn commission, are keen to make sales and like to make $$.
Cosmetic companies have developed at home products for every possible thing conceivable. Here in Canada you can buy at-home DIY microdermabrasion and glycolic acid peel kits.
You cannot, however, buy eyebrow dye in a drugstore. This should tell you something. Namely, that companies have not been able to develop an at home product that a sufficient number of people can use without blinding themselves.
I’m not trying to be a bag, or a pain in the ass. What I’m telling you is that it is NOT SAFE to use drugstore hair products on your eyebrows. There are no arguments that anyone in this thread can make that will make me change my mind. If you want dyed brows, you’re going to have to go to a salon for it, until such time that a company DOES manage to develop a product that’s safe for home use.
Anyhoo…$15 doesn’t sound too bad for beautiful brows. Maybe you can get some of the dye/tint from your technician and do it yourself at home. I mean, if you’re chummy with her.
No worries Stainz - this is actually one of those questions that I get asked at work quite a bit.
“I have 87 other products and applications in my hair - how can I bleach it safely?” Is another one I get asked quite a bit. The answer, BTW, is: You can’t.
You could investigate henna - the Body Shop used to sell home kits (I don’t know if they still do) which may be eye-safe. I would point out that henna will stain the skin as well as the hair so you could wind up with an effect that isn’t quite what you want.
Finally, I do want to re-recommend the eyebrow powder with an angle brush. If you apply it and set it with some translucent powder it really should stay put. Obviously, if you enthusiastically rub your eyes with a wet towel you’ll wind up with a mess, but for regular day-to-day wear it should be fine. Elizabeth Arden has a nice duo, as does Lise Watier (which isn’t sold in the US but you may be able to order it online). I think Channel and Lancome have similar products - you could shop around a bit.
alice_in_wonderland, couldn’t your warnings be directed at using hair-on-your-head-dye to dye eyebrows and lashes?
Becase in the Netherlands most big drugstores sell dyekits specifically meant to dye eyelashes and eyebrows with. in black and brown. I’ve bought and used them for 6 years or so, without problems.
It feels like the same product my beautician used, the two or three times she dyed my lashes. But I found it was not only cheaper, but also easier and less painful to dye them myself. The beautician dyed my brows when I was laying down in her chair, so the paint tended to droop down into my eyes. Applying it myself, standing up, gave me much better control.
In the end, I got fed up with dying and had permanent make-up on my eyebrows. Expensive, considering it only last four years or so before fading. Still, it looked very natural and nobody noticed it without me telling it. The artis makes all the differerence, and you should always ask for her to draw your eyebrows first untill you are satisfied with the shape and symmetry, before making them permanent.
Well, I’m assuming the OP isn’t interested in travelling to the Netherlands to purchase the items you’ve described, and being as they’re not sold in North American drug-stores I’m not sure what her alternative would be.
That is really cool! I’m going to be in Europe in March. I’m going to see if I can pick some up. I have a few other things I need to get as well. Like the best concealer I ever used…it’s by Chanel, but not approved for sale in the US. I will pick up several of those.
It’s so interesting how somethings are used widely in Europe, but for some reason are considered dangerous in the US. Maybe it’s just that the FDA or who ever apporves cosmetics in the US are over cautious.
I’m in CANADA which is not actually part of the US.
So yes they have Lise Watier cosmetics here, and I will continue to search online for eyebrow-dye, and in the meantime, try to find an esthetician here who doesn’t use the wimpy vegetable tint …
I also have hair conditioner made by Matrix (I think) that tints your hair darker, so I will use that on my brows (my hairdresser forbid me from ever using it on my hair again) on an ongoing basis to see if that darkens my poor blonde brows a bit.
Indeed, that eyebrowdye from the link seems to be sold in stores only in Europe, but it can be mail-ordered from the USA.
I’ve noticed before there are differences between Europe and the USA in the products they allow for sale. Weird, when the product does pass another countries safetystandards.
For instance, eyedrops to combat red eyes are commonly sold in the USA, but not here. I read about them in an American make-up book and wanted to buy them. Every salesperson I asked just looked at me in wonder. They didn’t even know what I meant, and when they did finally understand, they said it was a prescription medicine (they were wrong). In the end, I bought some red-eyedrops when I was in the USA. I wouldn’t even have known those existed if I hadn’t read that American book !
Maybe we should swap tips on illegal_in_your_county_but_not_in_mine_beauty_products?
