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Say one brow is longer than the other, maybe the arch is stronger on one side, or perhpase you have sparse patches on the right side, but not the left. No matter what’s making your brows uneven to the naked eye, there are a few common causes that can be applied accross all fronts. Here’s what might be going on. 

1.

You have them naturally.

Yes, you can have uneven brows naturally. Nobody is created with perfect symmetry across every feature (though sometimes social media may make it feel like that). So if your brows have always been slightly unique, then you probably haven’t done anything to make it worse. 

However you can still fake an even arch or fill in sparse areas if you choose, so skip to the next section if you want a few expert tips. 

“Overplucking is almost as sinister as over-waxing or over-threading because you pluck a little bit here, a little bit there–next thing you know you end up with a set of uneven brow,” legendary brow expert Joey Healy tells mbg. 

Giving yourself an original brow shape from scratch is no easy task, Healy says. Instead, you should only opt for DIY maintenance, which simply means maintaining the brow shape that a professional has previoulsy defined for you. 

The reason overplucking can create uneven brows is because it takes away too much hair, which can create uneven length, shape, and even empty patches. 

The fix: Put the tweezers down. Consult a brow specialist to help you create a base shape that you can maintain at home and let them grow out (more on brow growth in a bit). 

“Eyebrows are hair attached to skin and muscle. As we age, that muscle will begin to slacken and sag,” Healy explains. “In many circumstances, the muscle and skin will begin to weaken at different rates, creating asymmetries in the face.” 

So if your brows look uneven, it could be reflecting the state of your underlying skin. What’s more, your bone structure inevitably changes with age, too. “Our bones also degrade over time as well, creating a gap between the muscle and the bone which can also exacerbate the asymmetry of the brows,” he adds. 

Not to mention your hair naturally becomes more sparse overtime. Thinning of the brow hairs is completely natural, however you can support growth via serums. Again, keep reading for the breakdown on growth. 

As you may know, botox is used to paralyze the facial muscles in order to keep the skin looking tight. “However, sometimes the person administering the botox is overly focused on eliminating fine lines that they don’t take into account your eyebrows,” Healy says. 

“There are certain muscles in the frontalis, the forehead muscle, that’s job is to keep the brow down. When botox is applied prohibiting movement in this muscle, the brow can actually float a little bit,” he explains. 

If this has happened to your brows, it may manifest into uneven brow levels—read: one brow raising higher than the other. 

Luckily, botox doesn’t last forever, so the uneven brow will go back to normal with time. “It’s always best to have a conversation with your medical professional and mention that your brows are of concern and you want the doctor to keep your brows in mind when providing botox treatment,” Healy notes. 

One more thing to keep in mind: It takes anywhere from one to two weeks to see the full effect of botox. So if you notice your brows begin to look uneven a few days in, go back to the office you received your botox at and request a correction. “This happens more often than people realize,” Healy says. 

For the side sleepers out there, this may be bad news. “Sleeping on one side is actually pretty detrimental because the friction is breaking down the muscle, making the face slack a bit faster on one side,” Healy explains. 

What’s more, sleeping on one side actually affects the rate at which your brow hairs shed. “The increase in friction can cause the brow hairs to shed faster, especially in the tail of the brow,” Healy explains. In turn, this can cause thinning of the brow and an early cut-off. 

“However, if you naturally have very strong, conditioned brow hairs that are well-rooted, this shouldn’t be as big of a problem,” he notes. Yep, just another reason to add a brow serum to your beauty routine. 

If you’re truly concerned about how sleeping on one side will impact your skin or brows, you can try to switch to sleeping on your back. The transition isn’t always easy, but it is certainly possible. 

Healy also recommends investing in a silk pillowcase. This will help decrease friction and prevent threads tugging at the brow hairs. Plus, your hair and skin will thank you, too.

Whether you’re looking to regrow your brows or prevent future fallout, encouraging growth is a must. Topically, consider an eyebrow serum like the Joey Healy Brow Renovation Serum. This one is packed with peptides, hyaluronic acid acid, and hydrolyzed wheat protein to support your brows at any point in their journey. 

When searching for the best brow serum, consider the follow ingredients A+ additions: 

• Brow gels: Brow gels will help hold the brows in place, as if they were freshly combed. If you notice your brows growing in different directions, brow gel can help you even them out. 
• Powders: “Powder is a bit more subtle,” Healy says. You can use an angled brow brush and apply a brow powder, like the Joey Healy Luxe Brow Powder, that matches your hair color to add brow density and even build out your arch. 
• Pencils: Pencils are better for defining brow shape. “Pencils are great for filling in scars, defining the perimeter of the brow–great for line work,” Healy says. Thin brow pencils also reflect hair-like strokes, so it may be a greater otpion for someone trying to fill in the gap without filling in the rest of their brow, or extending your brow’s tail. 

While many things in the beauty space are DIY-friendly, creating even and well-shapwed brows isn’t—unless you have plenty of experience in the specialized area. Even visiting a professional one time to set your brows up for future success is worth the price—especially if your brows are a point of insecurity for you. 

If you can’t keep up with regular appointments, whether it’s because of your schedule or the price range, ask your expert how to maintain your brows at home. They might even set you up with some must-have tools and, most importantly, tell you what not to do. 

What’s more, brow experts can help you determine which mode of hair removal will be best for your brows. Here’s a quick breakdown of each of the most popular: 

• Tweezing: Tweezing is the most precise hair removal method since you can pluck out one strand at a time and control the direction, so you can make sure you fully remove the hair without breaking it. Plus, it’s the most at-home friendly. 
• Waxing: Eyebrow waxing can be a quicker process than tweezing, but it’s much more risky for your brow shape. Especially if you’re already dealing with uneven brows, it’s more difficult to see where you need the wax in order to even out the shape. Plus, you run the risk of overwaxing—which can mean stealing a clump of hair from the wrong area of your brow. 
• Threading: Threading falls right in between waxing and threading, as it’s somewhat precise but cannot compare to the hair-by-hair method of a good pluck. This one is also much more difficult to do at home if you’ve never tried it in the past—so leave it up to the professionals if that’s the case. 

4.

Consider semi-permanent options.

Next, we have more lasting solutions like microblading and microshading. Both of these are methods of applying semi-permenant tatto ink to the skin to mimic a filled-in brow, but the results are generally pretty different. 

Microblading creates hairlike strokes, while microshading mimics brow powder. The looks vary, and which one is more natural depends on how it is performed and your personal preference.

As a rule of thumb, those who love brow pencil will likely fancy the look of microblading, while a brow powder die hard will probably lean toward microshading. If you want to dive deeper into the difference between the two, check out our full guide here. 

5.

Check in on your overall health.

Brows can reflect what’s going on inside your body—however, brow hair loss isn’t a common symptom of health concerns. But you should be cautious when major changes happen. “If you experience a brow getting very, very thin all of the sudden, definitely talk about it with your doctor and have your thyroid checked,” Healy says. “Hyper- or hypothyroid issues can cause substantial hair loss in the eyebrows, often on the ends. Any unusual transformation involving hair loss on the eyebrows should be checked out,” he adds. 

In addition brows hairs can be affected by stress, much like the hairs on your scalp. Stress hair loss is a very real situation (read more in our guide to stress-related hair loss), and shouldn’t be discounted when you’re experiencing thinning in the area. Dealing with hair loss caused by stress can be difficult to navigate—especially because you have to get to the root of the cause first, which is stress. However, it is doable, so don’t let thinning brows add to your stress in the process.

Just to be safe, visit your doctor if you notice a dramatic change in the density of your brows. 

Before you dive into brow rehabilitation, you should take a deep breath and remind yourself that brows are not meant to be perfect. What’s more, you probably would never notice a slightly uneven arch or minorly patchy tail if it werent for the beauty standards created by society today. 

This is similar to the facination with facial symmetry—an angelic bone structure and perfectly aligned features layout may seem awe-worthy, but oftentimes it’s less symmetrical faces that seem more interesting, and more beautiful.