Photographed by Kieran Punay
Thomas McEntee demonstrates how to sculpt your brows to suit your facial features.
Seventeen years ago,Thomas McEntee was placed under the mentorship of the two biggest names in the world of brows: Damone Roberts, artist to Madonna and Beyoncé, and Kelley Baker, expert behind the Kardashians’ brows. Apart from this, he has served as a key makeup artist for New York Fashion Week in 2009. Following in his mentors’ footsteps, McEntee would later partner with Katie Chang and start his studio inside a skin care boutique named MioMia in Williamsburg.
Moving to Sweden in 2010, he found that the country was still shy of a brow takeover. Thomas braved opening his brow studio in Sweden and made the jump to do brows full time in 2020. Today, the rising brow artist who has been featured numerous times in Vogue Scandinavia is one of the best in Sweden with a long list of celebrity clientele.
With brows becoming more and more prominent these days, McEntee shares how to create your best shaped arches. First off, Thomas wants to make a distinction between brow styling and brow sculpting.
In sculpting, the artist creates the shape of one’s brows and removes hair from the roots. Between waxing and threading, the former is preferred for crisp, clean lines. To map and carve out the right frame, the artist looks at your bone structure, face shape, and eyes. His arsenal would consist of wax, tweezers, and scissors.
Usually, brows are mapped out using the three-point system from the crease of the nose, the outer part of the eye, and the edge of the nose to their parallel parts on the brow. “I don’t do it that way,” says Thomas. Instead, the artist follows the brow bone: plotting a line at the beginning of the brow and following the path where it curves. The method not only frames the ocular bone and the eyes but also “gives a natural lift on the ends and follows one’s precise face shape.”
In contrast to sculpting, brow styling refers to “how we want the look to be.” It pertains more to the finished look and feel of the brows: from how one fills them at home, how they become more defined, and how one creates them together with their makeup artist. It can be a matter of having brows feathered, sleek, or with finishing touches.
Three tools, each representing a step, are deemed essentials in brow styling. Thomas would guide as follows: Firstly, create your shape with a brow highlighter. Dispelling misconceptions, the brow expert would share, “People think you create the brow shape with your brow pen. You don’t. You create the shape with your highlighter,” like a map you can follow, he adds.
Next, with a micro-defining brow pen, shading pen, or shadow, fill in the gaps between hairs. Starting from the bottom, create upward strokes using your pen. To render a fine-fading ombré, do as McEntee by beginning from the middle of the brow rather than the top. In this part of the process, he discourages clients from tweezing at home and makes clear that the arch comes from the top, not the bottom.
To finish, use a clear brow gel to polish, add “piece-iness,” and give volume to the brow. While clear brow gels have become the artist’s default, he divulges how some of his clients work well with colored browed gels. Least in the artist’s list however are fiber-based brow gels which come in thick particles.
McEntee’s final advice? “Treat your brows like you treat your hair.” Condition them and pamper them with creams.
By Zofia Agama. Photographs by Kieran Punay. Beauty Editor Joyce Oreña. Styling by Adam Pereyra. Makeup: Karmela Jabla, Patricia Acejo of M.A.C Cosmetics. Hair: Nelson Cruz, Noel Muncada and Gerelyn Valentino of Toni&Guy Philippines. Models: Luna Mingming, Keanna Sanguyu. Nails: Extraordinail. Art Director: Jann Pascua. Producer: Bianca Zaragoza. Multimedia Artists: Gabbi Constantino, Tinkerbell Poblete.
