We Tried It: Dior’s Gold Eyebrows

We've seen a lot of beauty looks over the past month that have stopped us in our tracks, but when we saw the golden brows and lids at Dior's spring '14 show, we knew we were destined for an in-office DIY project. Because, you know, there's nothing like painting one's eyebrows gold in the middle of the workday to make people think you've officially lost your marbles.

When the day of our beauty experiment arrived, we felt nervous — would our co-workers ever take us seriously again? But, in the noble name of beauty, we stayed the course — and emerged with makeup that, while maybe not quite daytime-appropriate, made us feel like total makeup daredevils.

Click through to see how we did it, and the feelings going gilded made us feel.

After staring at all of the pretty (and slightly nuts) beauty looks coming out of Fashion Month, I was itching to try out something that was a little out there, but still really pretty. The perfect candidate? The gilded brows at Dior spring '14. This look was not about a hint of shine or shimmer — this was Pat McGrath going balls to the wall with glue and gold pigment, until the models' brows actually looked like 24k jewelry. But, you know, on your face.

Since I (like many girls) am a sucker for all things shiny, I decided to go for the simpler of the two runway versions of the look: the solid-gold brow with nothing else but a bit of mascara. First, I loaded up the brow side of Make Up For Ever's Double-Ended Angled Eyebrow and Eyelash Brush with the brand's Aquarelle in Gold (a water-based pigment that really coated my brows in a thick layer of color. Next, I simply dabbed on Make Up For Ever's Star Powder in 920, a shimmering gold, to set the liquid pigment and add another layer of shine.

Would I necessarily wear this look out on the town? Not exactly — something that I didn't love about this look was that it lightened my blond brows to the point where they were almost invisible, and I prefer a good dark, defined brow look. But, was it fun to play dress-up, and try to approximate McGrath's artistry? Yes — and I feel inspired to try out more daring looks in the future (because that's what beauty is all about, no?).

I love makeup that's a little bit odd, so I was super excited to try this out. It's unlike anything I usually do: Going lighter instead of darker on my brows was totally counter-intuitive, and piling on the gold around my eyes made me feel kind of like a fairy raccoon.

I used the Make Up For Ever brow brush after Tara did, so it wasn't dripping with the gold Aquarelle like when she used it. This allowed me to build the color up, brushing through my brow in layers. Since my brows are naturally pretty light, I didn't need to do anything more to get the color to really pop.

I then used the Aquarelle on my top and bottom lids, bringing it past my top crease, and extending it to the sides so that the color ended where my brows do. I gave it a moment to dry, and then with my finger, patted on a healthy amount of the Star Powder. I used Butter London's Wink Cream Eye Shadow in Sun Kiss, which is a paler gold, on the inner corners of my eyes. Then, when everything was dry, I lined my top lid with the same Butter London shadow in Jaded Jack, to create the mint green line.

All in all, this look was... a lot. Even for me. But, after we did the shoot, I took the brows off and realized that the eyeshadow on its own was pretty lovely. I kept it on for the rest of the day. I'm not sure if I'll ever be doing gold brows again, but it's good to have in my back pocket the next time I feel the need to really change things up.