You Need This
February 8, 2018
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I started getting my eyebrows waxed when I was nine years old, and it had nothing to do with wanting cool brows. Nope, I got the hair ripped off my face because fifth graders are tiny jerks and my unibrow had earned me the nickname “Gorilla girl.” For the next 15 years or so, I continued waxing my one brow into two separate (and occasionally questionably shaped) arches until that hair gave up and stopped growing. Even after three wax-free years, the centers of my brows are a fraction of how bushy they used to be. Then I came across VegaBrow.
It's by the same brand behind VegaLash. You've probably seen the before and afters on Instagram of women looking like they've gotten lash extensions. People online are diehard for it. And as it turns out, its brow counterpart is just as worthy of its raving reviews.
Here’s how it works: Just like the hair on your head, your brows grow in cycles. There are three phrases: shedding, dormant, and growth. Using an exclusive blend of nutrients (zinc and biotin are the most familiar and pronounceable), the VegaBrow serum stimulates your brows’ hair follicles out of their dormant phase so they’re always growing. It's also got strengthening and conditioning ingredients, so the brows you already have look thicker. Another bonus: it's 100 percent vegan.
Using it is about as simple as it gets. You just swipe it on with a little doe-foot applicator twice a day. After about two weeks, I noticed new tiny hairs sprouting up where I’d been brow-bald for years—even better than the four-to-eight weeks the brand says it officially takes to see a noticeable change.
As any hair grow-back process goes, it doesn't come without a few pain points. If you stop using the serum, your brows will return to their normal growth cycle, and you’ll stop seeing the crazy good results. And despite the serum working fast, you don't exactly have full control of which hairs will sprout in first. The latter has been the toughest for me—I've been left with a few patchy spots and an urge to pluck. That, however, is apparently a big don't, which I didn’t realize until speaking to Lily Talakoub, M.D., a derm at McLean Dermatology and Skincare Center. "Even the hairs outside the line of your natural brow shouldn't be plucked,” she told me. While serums stimulate your brows’ follicles, plucking can harm and even destroy follicles for good—which means you could undo all the work and money you put into the process. So for a serum like this one to be truly effective, you've just got to wait things out.
For a while, I felt self-conscious about my new baby brows looking unkempt, but regular use and zero plucking has me on my way out of scraggly-brow land. It's only recently that I've started leaving my apartment without filling in my brows. And at the very least, this serum has cut down on the time I take to get ready. No longer do I need a Dip Brow in my bag at all times. It’s rare to find a product that really does what it promises, but that’s what this serum is for me: fast, effective, and full-bushy brow goodness.
VegaMour VegaBrow Volumizing Serum, $80, vegalash.com
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