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Friends, Romans, country(wo)men, lend me your ears, I have a tale to tell of eyebrows. Specifically how one eyebrow tinting treatment. which in total took about 20 minutes, totally changed my brows, and as a result, my entire look.
If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you are familiar with the cultural phenomena and brilliance that is the LA beauty and creative institution STRIIIKE. But just in case, let me explain: three sisters have united to create a mecca in cool-girl beauty that knows no equal. Each Streicher sister has a different expertise: Kristie does brows (and by “does,” I mean she’s so revolutionary that she has a trademark on her signature treatment, the Feathered Brow), Jenn is one of the most sought-after makeup artists in Hollywood (known for her ability to accentuate each woman’s natural beauty), and Ashley is every cool girl’s hair stylists (giving each client the “I woke up like this” hair of her dreams). Together they unite to beautify the world.
But, we’re here to talk about brows. I walked into STRIIIKE, tucked on an unassuming side street in Beverly Hills—if any street can ever be considered ‘unassuming’ in the lavish neighborhood that is Beverly Hills. I was immediately swept away by Kristie Streicher’s kindness. She assessed my brows, which I will embarrassingly admit, I hadn’t really plucked in three years because they don’t really grow. She assured me that I’ve got more brows than even I realize.
Kristie is known for her individual approach to each face, working and perfecting each brow according to each person’s style, face shape, and coloring. She’s got a roster of celebrity clientele so long that it could make your head spin, but she treats each client—celeb or not—in her chair with focus and warmth (but what happens in STRIIIKE, stays in STRIIIKE, not a peep is ever mentioned about other clients).
She begins by mixing up her own formula of vegetable-based dye, meant to complement my dirty blonde hair color. She paints it on my brows and let it sits for a few minutes. She wipes it off and it’s strikingly darker. I see hairs that were playing hide-and-seek before. I love it, it’s a bold difference in literally two minutes.
Kristie studies them. “Part of me wants to take it to the next level,” she says. When Kristie Streicher asks permission to take your brows to the “next level,” the answer is always yes, a thousand times yes.
She applies another round of dye, which while it sits for a few minutes, makes me look like I vaguely resemble Groucho Marx (see above pic). She wipes away the dye after a few minutes, and I basically have had a brow transplant. I have more hair than I could have imagined. Seriously, I’m not sure if she’s a magician because there is no way all these hairs were there before. The color should last around four to six weeks before needing a touch up.
The second half of the Kristie’s brilliance is the tweezing. Strategic tweezing.
Before grabbing the tweezers, she dots on her own oil blend, Aforé Oil, which reduces the pain of tweezing, not that you’d feel it anyway with her quick, painless method. And there is a method to her madness, or, as she says, “a rhyme to our reason here.”
“Sometimes, tweezing—when it’s done strategically— can actually stimulate growth in areas. We have our clients not touch their eyebrows for eight weeks, and then they’ll come in, and we’ll just tweeze the strategic hairs. After awhile, it actually starts to fill in to those areas where you’re not tweezing. A lot of people look at me like I’m crazy, but there was a study (very sadly on lab rats) where they tweezed an area, and it showed how it affected the surrounding areas and growth. It totally proves my theory. Every hair makes a difference.”
The final step is showing me how to properly fill in my new set of brows. “You don’t need a ton of pencil, but I’m still going to show you where to fill in, just to make them complete. You can lightly shade here, blending out here, in this spot you want to…,” she says, giving me the tools to recreate the look at home, within 30 seconds.
Both she and I love Surratt Beauty Expressioniste Brow Pencil. It goes on without effort and lasts forever. Finally, she puts a clear brow gel on the brows, pushing them up.
I glance in the mirror in shock, and she acknowledges my speechless joy with, “Yep, it’s like magic.”
How to make The Feathered Brow last?
“Tweezing should be done all at once at the six to eight week point. This keeps the hair growth on one cycle rather than several,” says Kristie. “I always recommend clients be extra gentle with their eyebrows, when not only washing their face, but when applying brow fillers such as pencils, powders or wax. Using overly waxy pencils that can be sticky or using too much force when applying can accidentally pull the brow hairs out causing unwanted holes or sparse areas. BE GENTLE!”
How can you make brows grow?
“I have found that growth serums like Grande Brow and M2 Brow rejuvenating serums can really work in cultivating new growth,” says Kristie. “For those looking for a more natural, DIY treatment, I recommend using a soft spoolie-type brush, and gently brushing hairs in an upward motion, this can remove dead skin cells that tend to accumulate under and around the hair. This will also stimulate the brow skin area and increase blood flow which can strengthen and promote new and healthy hair growth. Finish by massaging a nourishing oil, rich in Vitamin E, like Afore Oil, which protects, moisturizes and maintains healthy, strong hair growth. I recommend doing this daily.”
Want bold brows, but not in LA?
Well, Kristie has a trained specialist in New York. And she’s just launched a virtual appointment program, which is designed for people that aren’t in LA or NY, but still want to cultivate the most brow growth possible. With each appointment you will receive custom detailed eyebrow tweezing and trimming instructions tailored to your needs, along with product recommendations and tips on how to use them. Each virtual Appointment is $100.
Keep reading for more smart beauty tips:
The $10 French Secret to Covering Those First Gray Hairs The Daily Vitamin That Will Make Your Hair Grow So Fast Apparently, We’ve All Been Popping Our Zits Wrong
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