"Microfeathering" is L.A.'s Latest Brow Trend — & The Results Are SO Natural

If your heart skips a beat for full brows (Pop quiz: Do you own more than 10 brow products and Insta-stalk Hailee Steinfeld or Lily Collins?), then you might have heard of Kristie Streicher, one of L.A.'s top celebrity-loved eyebrow experts.

And if you haven’t, well, you need to follow her on Instagram for serious brow-spiration. But more importantly, you need to know about her new approach to achieving thick, full, natural-looking brows — because the technique is about to give traditional microblading a run for its money.

Streicher’s latest trademark brow technique, aptly named "microfeathering," has become popularised through her A-list clientele. Think: Mandy Moore, Adele, and Lorde. (Yes, non-celebs lover her too, like our L.A.-based senior beauty editor, Lexy Lebsack.) The cutting-edge (pun intended) microfeathering process is a variation of microblading, but Streicher's approach includes a very light hand, a bespoke approach, and a lot of patience, which ensures that the results are always natural-looking.

"I love brows that are wild and sprout-y in the front, and a little bit longer on the ends — they just look beautiful, " she tells us. "I've always likened it to lashes; the more lashes you have, and the more brow hair you have, the more healthy, young, and refreshed you look."

Originally from Northern California, Streicher harnessed her "feathered brow" approach through years of work, and she can now be found at Striiike, the Beverly Hills salon she co-owns with her two sisters.

First step? Brow rehab. "We tell clients to throw away their tweezers, and come in every six to eight weeks so we can do clean-ups in between the stages of growing," she explains. "It trains the hair cycle to grow into the actual brow line. People don't realise that when you're tweezing randomly, the hair kind of grows randomly, but if you train them and put them on a cycle, they'll actually grow in along the brow line." This also includes tinting and is done for six months to ensure the full growth is achieved.

Streicher then re-evaluates her client's brows after rehab, to get a better understanding of how their hair grows, and how she can shape them in the most natural (and not-tattooed-looking) way. "I use the natural brow, after the grown-in period, as a guideline to understand how the client's hair naturally comes in — it turns out that people actually don't need as much help as they think they do," she informs us.

The microfeathering technique is then implemented as a supplement to enhance a brow shape. So, how does it work? "I just add little, tiny hair strokes, just a few, and it really makes such a difference," she says. "I see a lot of tattoo artists using the same template and brow outline for everyone, which often ends up looking very artificial, but with microfeathering, you're left with a full-looking brow, rather than a microbladed brow."

So the lesson learned from our resident brow magician? Patience is a virtue — and a lighter hand is best. Here's to tossing our tweezers...