Brows to dye for

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Contrast: Kate Winslet

My attitude towards experts is as follows: let them get on with it. A mechanic understands the inner workings of my car better than I do; a hairdresser should know more than me about the best way to chop into my locks; and I expect an “aesthetician” who claims to be an eyebrow specialist to be, well, exactly that.

How little I knew. It turns out that when it comes to beauty the question of brows is one of the most complicated questions there is. The results of a wrong answer are very public and very embarrassing. Let me explain.

One balmy Sunday I strolled into a beauty salon to have my eyebrows shaped. The aesthetician suggested I get my blondish hairs dyed darker to make my eyes “pop”. I thought this made good sense. So she mixed some dye and applied it to my brows. When the dye came off, my eyes did “pop” – although not in a good way.

My perfectly groomed brows were now about six shades darker than my blonde hair. I looked like a cartoon version of a serial killer or an eastern European dictator. I slunk home in horror, reassuring myself that I just needed some time to get used to them.

But each time I saw my reflection in the mirror I did a double-take. Who was that scary person? Looking forward to the party season that is about to be upon us, I decided to find out exactly where I went wrong.

“The general rule is if you have only coloured your hair a couple of shades lighter or darker, you are fine to leave your brows as is,” says Frédéric Fekkai, who is a celebrated French hairdresser. “If you have lightened your hair considerably, then you might want to think about lightening your brows, too.” Alternatively, he says: “Some women leave their brows alone when they colour their hair, like Kate Winslet, and she looks fantastic.”

According to Vanita Parti, the founder of Blink, which has 18 boutiques in UK department stores and another in Henri Bendel in New York, eyebrows should be dyed just one shade darker than your natural hair colour. “As a blonde, I think you should be slightly darker than your hair colour or your brows will be invisible,” she says. “But if you overdo it you are in danger of looking too harsh. For blonde clients, the dye should be put on and removed immediately.” (My dye had been left on for more than five minutes.)

For Vaishaly Patel, an eyebrow specialist, the aim is to create an anti-ageing effect. “When eyebrows are well-shaped and coloured they make the eyes look lifted, which in turn makes you look more awake,” she says. “Eyebrows don’t always have to match your hair but they should be close in colour to prevent the eyes from looking lost.” Women with brown or black hair, she recommends, should go dark; blondes should aim for one shade darker than the hair on their head; and redheads should “give eyebrows a depth of brown that is on the warm side. This is what will keep you looking young.”

Unfortunately, all of this advice came too late for me. And it turns out that, if you do go wrong eyebrow-wise, there is little recourse. “You just have to let them fade,” says Nadiya Bekar, a waxing specialist from the Michaeljohn salon in London. “Never bleach your eyebrows because the bleach will react with the dark dye and could make them turn green.”

On the scale of undesirable looks, it is preferable to look like a criminal’s mug shot rather than the Grinch.