The short answer: Find three points with a pencil held against your own face — where the brow starts, where it arches, where it ends — and mark them. Then comb the brow hair downward and fill in underneath it. That second step is the whole trick: combing down exposes the space behind your hair, and shading that space reads as fullness rather than as a drawn-on brow.
Why take brow advice from her
Because brows are not a sideline for Nikol, they are the specialty.
As a licensed esthetician she waxed, tweezed and trimmed brows, including men's. As a permanent makeup artist she did only brows — creating individual hair strokes with a single needle — for hundreds of women. Her list of who came to her is the reason the technique is worth learning: alopecia, hair lost to chemotherapy, brows over-plucked into nothing, scarring through the brow line, hormonal loss.
Her framing for this video: "this video is about technique, it's not so much about product." Which means it works with whatever pencil you already own.
Step 1: The three points
Hold a pencil against your face and look in the mirror while you do it. There is now a TikTok filter that maps this automatically, and it maps exactly what Nikol has taught for years — but you do not need it.
| Point | How to find it |
|---|---|
| Where the brow starts | Pencil at the inner corner of your nose, straight up |
| Where it arches | Pencil at the ball of your nose, angled up over your iris |
| Where it ends | Pencil at the corner of your nose through the outer corner of your eye, straight up |
Make a small mark at each of the three. You will erase them afterward.
Then disagree with the map where you need to
This is the part that keeps it from being a formula. Doing it on camera, Nikol finds that her own arch sits lower than the map suggests, and that one brow starts further along than the other.
Her conclusion: "that's because we're asymmetrical." The three points tell you the reference position for your bone structure. Where your existing hair and your own face disagree with it, your face wins. She is explicit that this video is "tailored to you as the individual, not to everyone" — and that it takes practice to learn your own structure.
Step 2: Comb the hair down — the actual trick
Take a spoolie (there is one on the other end of most brow pencils) and comb your brow hair downward.
Everything changes when you do. With the hairs lying up, they hide the space beneath them. Comb them down and you can see the real base of your brow, the gaps, and the dead space you have been filling blind.
Now fill in underneath the hair, while it is still combed down. Build up to your arch mark and bring the line down toward the tail. Then comb the hair back up.
What you have created is shading behind the hair rather than color on top of it — which is why it reads as a fuller, lifted brow instead of a drawn one. Nikol's description of what just happened: "you just brought it up to that point."
The specific failure this fixes
She names the pattern she saw constantly in the studio: a woman has a small tuft of hair at the front, and then "the brow just goes straight up — it's like a big rainbow." No base, all arch.
The fix comes out of the comb-down. Whatever base hair you do have shows you where the underside of the brow belongs; follow that line straight across and fill in along it. You are extending a line your own face gave you rather than inventing one.
And the tail is where most of us lose it: "a lot of us kind of start missing this lateral part — whether it's hormonal, whatever the case is." That is normal, and it is what the map's third point is for.
Step 3: Fill, then set
Light hair-like strokes with a Skinny Brow Pencil — taupe or a medium brown for mapping, and Soft Gray if your hair is silver. The full filling method is in how to fill in sparse eyebrows over 50.
If you are not ready to freehand it: stencils
Nikol designed brow stencils for exactly this gap, and her word for them is "training wheels."
Map your three points first, then line the stencil up with your starting point and flatten it over the brow — and it shows you precisely where to fill. She used them on a Fierce Aging client who had no lateral brow at all and therefore no way of knowing where it should go or how thick it should be. Once you can see the shape, you can learn to draw it.
Brow gel instead of tinting
This is a professional changing her own advice, which is worth noting. Nikol used to tint brows constantly. She now tells women to use a brow gel instead.
Her reasoning is control. A tint is a commitment that might come out too dark, might not last on you, and needs another appointment to change. A gel covers gray, blonde or very fine hairs whenever you want it to, before an event and not otherwise. And the clear version adds structure and a slight gloss, holding the brow up without adding any color at all.
Two rules about scissors and salons
Never trim your brows blunt
Brush the hairs up, and snip only the very tips. Do not comb them down and cut straight across.
Her verdict on the blunt cut, offered without insisting: "if you like that look, that's totally fine — I just think it looks a little harsh, and it doesn't give you that nice soft flow."
Do not let desperation take you to a nail salon
This is the most emphatic thing she says, and it comes from having cleaned it up professionally.
"Do not be desperate where you end up at a nail salon and they wax off your brows. Do not get to the point of desperation."
She ran an actual service for the aftermath — brow boot camp — built because so many women arrived having to start again from nothing and be walked all the way back. Before you get there, the options are: a stencil, so you know exactly where to tweeze and touch nothing else; a video like this one; or simply waiting until you can see someone you trust with them.
Brows grow back slowly, and some do not come back at all. That is the whole reason for the caution.
If you have almost no brow hair
Two options beyond a pencil.
A brow serum, if there is something to work with. Applied nightly and consistently — the same discipline as a lash serum.
Brow tattoos, which surprised her. These are temporary transfers of individual hair strokes, ordered online, and she says they look like what she would draw with a needle: "if you are wanting to know if they look natural and they look realistic — absolutely."
She knows this because in 2020, unable to see clients, she tested one on her husband. He agreed on the condition it went above his own brow, then panicked halfway through. She thought she had removed it. She had removed the backing paper. He wore a double eyebrow to a meeting and then around Costco, masked, so it was the only visible feature on his face. She took photographs and sent them to her studio staff, and their verdict was that it looked terrific. "I don't get to do a lot of things on him anymore because of that experience."
Frequently asked questions
How do you map your eyebrows?
Hold a pencil at the inner corner of your nose and go straight up for where the brow starts; at the ball of your nose angled over your iris for the arch; and from the corner of your nose through the outer corner of your eye for where it ends. Mark all three, then adjust for your own bone structure and existing hair.
Why should you comb your brows down before filling them in?
Because the hairs hide the space underneath them. Combing down exposes the real base of the brow and the gaps you cannot otherwise see, so you can fill behind the hair rather than on top of it. Comb it back up and the shading reads as fullness rather than as a drawn-on line.
My brows are asymmetrical — am I mapping them wrong?
No. Everybody's are, and Nikol's own arch sits lower than the standard map. The three points give you a reference for your bone structure; where your face disagrees with the reference, follow your face.
How do you fix a brow with no base, just an arch?
Comb the hair down and look at whatever base hair remains — that shows you where the underside of the brow belongs. Follow that line straight across and fill along it, rather than adding more to the arch.
Should you use brow stencils?
They are useful training wheels, particularly if you have lost the outer third of your brow and have no idea where it should sit. Map your three points first, then line the stencil up with the starting point and flatten it over the brow to see where to fill.
Is a brow gel better than tinting?
For control, yes — and this is a professional who used to tint brows for a living. A gel covers gray or fine hairs whenever you want it, with no commitment, no risk of a tint coming out too dark, and no appointment. A clear version holds the brow up without adding color.
How should you trim your eyebrows?
Brush the hairs upward and snip only the very tips. Never comb them down and cut straight across, which produces a blunt, harsh edge and loses the soft flow of the brow.
Are temporary brow tattoos any good?
Nikol was skeptical and changed her mind. The hair-stroke transfers look genuinely realistic — close to what she would draw with a permanent makeup needle — and they suit anyone with partial or no brow hair.
What should you do instead of getting your brows waxed somewhere you do not trust?
Wait. Use a stencil so you know exactly where to tweeze and leave everything else alone, or watch a tutorial and map them yourself. Nikol ran a service specifically for rebuilding brows after desperation waxing, and the rebuild takes far longer than the wait would have.
Start here
Tonight, do only the first two steps. Hold a pencil against your nose and find your three points — you will probably learn that your arch is not where you have been putting it. Then comb your brows down with a spoolie and look at what is actually underneath. That one view of your own brow tells you more than any tutorial can, and it costs nothing. The filling comes after, and it is easier once you can see the shape you are filling.
