I Refuse to Let Go of My 2016 Brow Routine
I was a late bloomer when it came to makeup. Most of the women in my family keep their faces bare, so that’s what I was used to—though you’d think growing up during the peak of the 2010s makeup boom, with its cut creases, baking, and sculpted brows, might’ve changed that. But I stayed on the sidelines. I knew I was nowhere near prepared to step into that arena. At least, until my sophomore year of high school, when my best friend pointed out something I’d never noticed before.
She asked me if I knew there was a slit running through my right eyebrow. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the second I looked in the mirror, it was all I could see: a tiny gap in the hair glaring back at me. Newly tuned in to every brow I encountered, I realized my mom and sister had the same hairless sliver in their brows. The difference? My hair is much finer, so the gap looked even more pronounced. My hypercritical brain took this imperfection and ran with it. I went into overdrive trying to achieve the perfect brows.
I started by getting my brows waxed to clean up the shape. Soon after, I found myself at Ulta, clutching the brow product of all brow products: Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wiz. At first, I kept it simple, just filling in the gaps with light strokes through the midsection. I stuck to that for about a year. But as I got more comfortable, I started following along with YouTube tutorials. I wasn’t doing full-coverage foundation or rocking liquid matte lipsticks just yet, but my brow routine got a full overhaul.
I wanted to shape, define, and perfect like all my favorite YouTubers—think Desi Perkins, Jackie Aina, Alissa Ashley, and Jaclyn Hill at their peak. Pamela Becher, a brow artist based in Miami, points to Kylie Jenner as the celebrity who started it all: “Her sharply-defined, perfectly filled-in brows became an Instagram beauty standard in 2016,” says Becher.
So with that, I graduated from shyly filling in my brows with a pencil to fully carving them out using Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade, a tiny pot of highly-pigmented brow makeup. I’d load up an angled brush with creamy pigment and trace it over my sparse brows, exaggerating the arch and dragging out the tail until it nearly met my eyeliner wing—perfectly on-trend for the boxy, angular brow shape of the time. Then came my favorite step: concealer cleanup. With a few swipes under the brow bone and over the arch, I could fake the look of a fresh wax, even when I was weeks overdue.
It got to the point where I wouldn’t leave the house even for a quick grocery run without a fully made-up brow. No full face, no mascara, just brows. This routine saw me through high school graduation and college. But in recent years, the brow landscape has shifted. Laminated, microbladed, fluffy, thin, bleached—the trends just kept coming. At one point, I felt like I had to reevaluate my routine to keep up.
“Over the past decade, brow trends have [leaned toward] softer, more natural looks,” says Becher. “The overly structured, heavy brows gradually gave way to a more feathered, textured style.” This, says Becher, is a reflection of the effortless, “clean girl” aesthetic made famous by the likes of Hailey Bieber.
So a couple years ago, I gave fluffy brows a try—but my natural brows just weren’t full or feathery enough to pull it off. I even experimented with the brushed-up, laminated look, but couldn’t shake the feeling that it made me look like I’d just been electrocuted.
The evolution of my brows from 2016 to 2024.
That’s why I’m standing by my 2016 brow routine—with a few tweaks. I no longer overshape my brows, and I’ve finally retired the concealer that was three shades too light. But even with those changes, the core of my routine remains. I still wear them fully filled in with either pomade or pencil (I now switch between the two) with a bit of ombré at the front. The arch remains soft, and the tail is sharp as ever.
Jordon Tiller, a New York City makeup artist known for reworking classic glam, has also made some adjustments: “As much as I’ve loved the 2016 brow, I’ve really worked on modernizing it in my own way while still using key elements of what makes the brow stand in its own lane,” he says. Instead of highlighting both under and on top of the brow bone, for example, he uses “a foundation shade on top that matches [his] client’s skin tone, and [he] goes a little lighter underneath the brow to define it and clean it up a bit.”
Becher still looks to create 2016-like fullness, but with softer edges. “A lightweight brow pen or tinted gel can replace heavy pomades, which helps retain fullness without the overly sculpted effect,” she says. Tiller echoes that sentiment, favoring powder over pomade for a more diffused look. “I’ll use powder and an angled brush to mimic hair strokes,” he says. “I love to always go at least one shade lighter than your hair color.”
Personally, I’m never going to give up my pomade. I’m not anti-experimentation, but I’ve landed on what works and feels best for me. Becker puts it best: “A well-shaped brow tailored to your unique bone structure and face shape will always look flattering and timeless.” So no matter what year it is, I’ll be sticking beside my filled-in, sharp-tailed, clean-concealed 2016 brows.
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5 of July 2025
