A second combo record: where the shading fades

What this combo record shows

I'm Jisun, the owner of London Brow in Seoul. If you searched for a soft combo shading fade photo, this is one: a record from the first London Brow in 2020. The caption says one thing: combo brow, right after the session. The photo is unedited and carries the label I put on every record, right after the session. That label is the whole claim of the picture. It shows the design on the day, and nothing later.

Combo is the look my menu calls Powder Soft Combo, soft combo for short: hair strokes first, then a light powder shade placed behind them. This is the second combo record on this journal. The first one I read for the strokes. This one I want to read for the shading alone, and for one question in particular: where does it thin out.

Where the shade starts and where it stops

Open the photo and go to the front third of one brow. In my combos the front is mostly strokes, with the shade starting behind the first hairs rather than on them, so there is no hard edge where the brow begins. The test is simple: if you can see skin between the lines at the very front, the shade has not reached there yet. Move toward the middle, where the shade is at its fullest and the lines sit on a soft tone. Then follow the tail. The shade thins before the last strokes end, so the tail finishes as lines, not as a block.

That is what I mean by fade in this article: a gradient drawn on purpose, lighter at both ends, fuller in the middle. It is not a word about time. A photo labelled right after the session can only speak for that day, and I do not use it to describe anything later.

Sketch the fade on your own brow

You can try the gradient at home with ordinary makeup, which is how I would ask you to think about it before we talk. Take a brow powder and a small angled brush, fill the middle of one brow lightly, and leave the first few hairs at the front untouched. Then take a clean spoolie and brush the front and the tail once or twice so the powder softens toward the edges. Photograph it straight on in daylight, and photograph the other brow bare. The two pictures together are your sketch.

Now look at the sketch and decide where you liked the shade stopping. Some people want it to start right behind the first hairs; others want a longer stretch of strokes alone before the tone begins. Some want the tail to fade early, others want the shade to run almost to the end. It varies from person to person, and the sketch tells us which kind you are better than any adjective.

Why I draw the fade rather than leave it to chance

The shade in a soft combo follows the hair you already have. Where your own hairs are dense, little or no shade is needed, because the hairs do the filling. Where the hairs are sparse, the shade does more of the work. So the fade in a record is not a style applied to everyone. It is the shape of that person's hair density, read and answered. On your brow it would start and stop somewhere else.

Brush your own brows up in the mirror and look for the thinnest stretch. That is usually where a shade would be fullest on you, and the stretches on either side of it are where it would thin. If the thinnest stretch is at the front, we have a different conversation, because I keep the front as strokes wherever I can.

How to bring this into the consultation

Consultations at London Brow are translation-assisted over WhatsApp, so send pictures and short sentences. A message like this works: 'Soft Combo. In my sketch the shade starts after the first hairs and stops before the tail ends. Would that work on my brows?' Attach the bare photo and the sketch photo.

In the room, ask me two things. Where would the shade start on me, and where would it stop. I will point at both places on your own brow before anything is drawn, and we move them until the fade looks like yours.

Common questions