How to Get Your Brows Right — Every. Single. Time.

Let’s all agree on one thing right here: your eyebrows are one of your most important facial features. A bad brow shape has the ability to make your eyes look droopy and skew your cheekbone and face shape. The perfect arch, on the other hand, opens your eyes up and frames your entire look. And best of all, you can maintain it without a monthly trip to the salon.

We aren’t saying no to the pros — the golden rule of brow shaping is that you’ve got to find the perfect shape for you, and this you’ll need a professional for. You may love Jessica Alba’s perfectly rectangular brows, but your face may call for more of an arched look. A seasoned threading or waxing professional will help you find it. However, once you have your shape sorted, it’s easier than you think to maintain the look at home. All it takes is a steady hand and a little self-restraint. Read and repeat:

1. Begin shaping after a shower, since heat helps to open the hair follicle, making plucking an easier, less painful experience.

2. Buy good tweezers. Look for a pair with slanted ends designed to grab onto hair at the roots but not pinch your skin.

Tweezerman Studio Ultra Precision Slanted Tweezers, $25, Amazon

3. Don't over-pluck. Hear that? DO NOT OVER-PLUCK. The best way to keep yourself in check is to map out where your brows should start, end and where the highest point, the arch, actually is. Here's a trick: hold your tweezers up to your face vertically, so they are touching the outer edge of one nostril and line up with the inner corner of your eye. Wherever the tip of the tweezers lands is where your brow should begin. Once you've located that point on each side, go forth and pluck any growth in between. Congratulations, you've staved off any hint of a unibrow.

4. Find your arch point. Hold your tweezers so they stretch from the outer corner of your nose over the outer edge of your pupil upwards. Where the tip lands is where your arch is. (It helps to mark this point with an eyeliner as a guide for when you are tweezing underneath your brows.)

5. Find the ideal endpoint for your brows. It depends on your face shape. Using your tweezers again, measure from the outer corner of your nose through the outer corner of your eye. Remove the hairs the fall beyond this line.

6. Work slowly and precisely to pluck the stray hairs from underneath the brow. Never remove hairs above on top — pulling them out would affect the core shape, which you don't want to do.

7. After every three hairs, step back from your mirror and assess your work to ensure that you aren’t over-plucking. (We'll say it again: Don't over-pluck.)

8. Don’t aim for symmetry — no one’s brows are exactly the same. Trying to achieve perfect symmetry will only lead to over-plucking and a skewed shape. Don't. Over-pluck.