When it comes to brows, bigger is always better. Sideline your minimalist sensibilities, and go brash and bold.

Look to the ’90s supers – where the American power brow ruled – or seek inspiration from unlikely sources à la Groucho Marx and Frida Khalo. Remember, beauty is art, so let thy face (or brow) be thy canvas.

Using Kat Von D Beauty Super Brow, amp up even the sparest brow with well-placed flicks that will stay (24-hours to be exact), then fluff up with a spool. Your brow trajectory can either be streamlined, or go crazy and play with direction – upwards and outwards with verve.

You know what they say, go big (brow), or go home.

 

Brow Talk with Kelseyanna Fitzpatrick
@kelseyannaf

can you run through the brow look?
So I ended up using Brow Struck and Signature Brow, which is the brow powders and the pencil, and I used the shadow on the new angle brush and lightly brushed it through your brow. We used medium brown because that gave a really natural effect to your brows without them looking too heavy. The products are super special because they are super long wearing and it’s also the first waterproof brow powder. It’s so cool and so easy to use. I love the reflective sheen and 3D effect it gives to the brows, and it really fills in any sparse areas without looking super obvious, which I really love.

In terms of people who don’t have much brow, can they still get a look like this, or what are your tips to achieving this?
The key to that is using this powder as it is really helpful for someone who doesn’t have a lot of brows because it reflects like the brow hair would instead of looking very matte and artificial. The next thing that makes the brow look really realistic is drawing on brow hairs like the micro-bladed effect, either using the angle brush and the power slightly damped with Setting Spray, or using the pencil because it’s so fine and precise, and using a light hand drawing individual brow hairs. That can give anyone a super natural brow look even if you don’t have a lot to begin with – you can draw on whatever fluffy shape you want. On you, I went in just to a couple areas and added a few hairs and accentuated what you have already. But even if you didn’t have a lot of brow hairs, I still would’ve done that, probably even more.

What is your approach to beauty as a whole and what has shaped this?
I think as far as makeup goes, I don’t feel like anyone should feel like they have to wear makeup. It is such a fun way to express yourself and I don’t think it should ever feel like a chore or an accessory. I love everything from no-makeup makeup, because my background is working on photo shoots where you don’t want it to look like people are wearing anything, but I also started as an artist and I am in love with crazy, dramatic looks. I do lots of editorial and painterly looks, so for me beauty is anything that takes my breath away, but I also love enhancing people’s natural beauty with simple touches like we did today. It’s important to do what feels right for you. I think people shouldn’t feel like they have to look a certain way every day. I know I look super crazy, so people might think that it’s the only thing that I think is cool but I definitely love every aspect of it. I love everything from raw to super dramatic.


What does Kat Von D Beauty stand for to you?
I love Kat Von D Beauty so much because it’s for everyone and Kat puts so much effort into making sure there is so much diversity and options, so there’s something for everyone and no ones feels excluded. It’s so important to me that we are a cruelty-free, vegan brand because that’s something I believe in so much on my own, and it’s just so amazing to be able to share that with people and make vegan products so accessible. I don’t think anyone wants products where animals are harmed, but sometimes it’s hard when the products aren’t accessible, so she just tries to make it so easy and I love that so much.

Kat’s aesthetic is a little bit Avant Garde, a bit conceptual and dramatic, how can the everyday girl or boy apply that? Is there any tips or tricks?
I think if you feel inclined and drawn to that sort of thing, you should definitely go for it and give it a try because anyone can do that. A good way to start is choosing one element to begin with. For example, Kat’s classic perfect bold lip would be so beautiful with just brushed eyebrows and mascara and that bold lip. Or just the winged eyeliner with a neutral face, or something like that. Or wearing all black. I think you can just take one element of it and incorporate it into your look. It’s all about what you want to do, and I don’t think you should let anyone stop you just because you haven’t done it before.

You play with unexpected colour. Do you have any tips for people who want to introduce colour? For example, a coloured lipsticks or coloured brow.
Some good places to start if you don’t know what colour to use, is red because it is flattering on almost everybody. It’s the natural colour of our blood and actually is super flattering on everyone whether it’s a lipstick or an eyebrow. Or when in doubt, look at your eye colour, if you have blue or green eyes, you could choose a colour that matches that and that would be flattering because it already exists on your face. One of my favourite ways to experiment with colour on people is to use the new Super Brow, which is the Kat Von D Beauty Brow Pomades because you can just change one element of your makeup, you can do whatever you usually do with your makeup, then play with a colour in your brow.

For example, there is one shade, Aubergine, which is like a maroon-burgundy, and it is like brown mixed with purple and red. From far away it just looks like natural brow colour, but when you get close up it has this beautiful red glow, which I think is a great shade to try if your nervous about colour but you want to try something. You can mix a little bit of the colour into your own brow colour, you can mix in a bit of brown and green, or you can use a little bit on a mascara wand and just brush it through your eyebrow hairs and that will give you a little tint and hold your brows in place. Another way to incorporate colour could be, instead of doing a full on red lipstick, I would pat on a little with your fingers and do a lip stain, and that’s so pretty and easy to wear.

 

Can you tell us how how a darker complexion with a darker brow wear the bleached brow look?
The Bleach Brow Pomade is actually so pigmented you could really use it on anybody. It’s an awesome thing to use to touch up already bleached brows, but lots of people are afraid to commit to actually bleaching their eyebrows, which I totally understand. The special thing about this shade is it has a lot of warmth to it, so it helps cancel out some of the darker brow hairs. There’s a couple ways you can do it. If you wanted to just lightly highlight your brows, you could brush a little bit through using a mascara wand, and that would be beautiful on anybody. But if you wanted to really cancel out your brows and make them look super bleached, if you have very dark hair I would mix in a bit of the yellow and the red pomades to make it a little bit more orange, and that will cancel out the brows even more. But since it’s such a pigmented product, on almost everybody it works alone.

I really liked your analogy of the bleached brow being the equivalent of the nude lip. Could you touch on that again?
I find sometimes people are nervous about having too many bold features with their makeup but a really cool way to rock a dramatic eye and lip is to use your brow as your nude lip. By lightening the brow and softening it, it does give you the effect of a nude lip and gives a beautiful softening effect to the face. Whenever I’m doing a look and I don’t want it to look too Instagram or too heavy, I’ll either try and match the brow to the persons skin tone to give them a soft brow colour, or if you go in with the bleach, it gives them a soft, clean look to the face.

You mentioned you were an artist –  and There’s obviously a link between art and beauty. What does that relationship mean to you?
That relationship means everything to me. I think that my background in art made me the artist that I am today, and my style would be not the same at all without it. I was mostly into painting, but I also took really intense art classes all through school, and I also spent all my time that I could in the art room. I spent a lot of time practicing and I had some amazing teachers that really drilled a lot of good practices in my mind that I apply to makeup today. It’s changed the way that I approach makeup. I think I don’t look at it so much as looking for ways to improve yourself. I think about creating a beautiful, cool look – something that intrigues me or inspires me. I’m always thinking about colour theory and stuff like that when I do my makeup. Also approaching every makeup that I do with a purpose and a direction and trying to do something different that hasn’t been done before.

I’ll challenge myself, like I’ll only use complementary colours for this look, or it’s going to be completely monochromatic, so I’ll only use shades of blue or something like that in my makeup. I think about that all the time and I take that into account. All my art teachers really drilled that into me to be original and learn from people before you, so I studied art history quite a lot. When in doubt I try and get inspired by old paintings and colour schemes and techniques, and I try and see how I can bring that into makeup to create something really unique and original.

Do you have one really unique tip or trick you can share?
One trick – it’s so simple and I learned it a couple years ago that I do every day and I do on other people, and for some reason not a lot of people seem to know it. When I’m doing bottom mascara, I always rip off a piece of tissue and I hold underneath the lashes, and then you can go crazy with your mascara without getting it on your makeup and it works so much better.

CREDITS: 
PHOTOGRAPHER & VIDEOGRAPHY: E. MICHAEL WOLF
TALENT: TATIANA ROSE

MAKEUP: Kelseyanna Fitzpatrick FOR KAT VON D BEAUTY
HAIR: PETER BECKETT
CONTENT DIRECTION: JUSTINE O’DONNELL