Thankfully, something that my ancestors blessed me with are thick eyebrows and long eyelashes. But because I actually prefer to do my own eyebrows at home (because sometimes the professionals shape them in a way that I'm not exactly thrilled with), there are times when I can get a little, shall we say overzealous, when it comes to removing sparse hairs. If you can relate to where I am coming from, then you know that it can feel like for-e-ver when you're waiting for your eyebrows to fill back in. Something that has helped are some of these all-natural remedies below.
Whether you're looking to have thicker brows or you want to be able to get a little more length on those lashes of yours, here are some things, that you probably already have at your crib somewhere, that can totally help you out and hook you up.
Jamaican Black Castor Oil
Personally, I'm a big fan of Mango & Lime's Jamaican Black Castor Oil line. Currently, my collection consists of their rosemary, lavender and vitamins A-D-E bottles. Jamaican black castor oil is dope because the properties in it are able to heal acne marks, deeply moisturize your skin and, it even contains antifungal and antibacterial ingredients that can help to heal skin infections over time. What I personally use this type of oil for is my hair. It conditions my tresses, helps to prevent breakage and even makes my hair thicker too. Something else that Jamaican black castor oil is able to do is nourish your eyebrows' and eyelashes' hair follicles so that they grow thicker over time.
How to Apply: All you need to pour about a half teaspoon of the oil into the bottle's top. Then dip a Q-tip into the oil and spread the oil over your brows and along your eyelashes. If you do this every night, you should notice fuller eyebrows and eyelashes in about a month. (Bonus tip: If you add a drop of vegetable glycerin to the oil, it can help your eyebrows to fill in even faster. Just make sure to NOT do this with your eyelashes. Vegetable glycerin can irritate your eyes if it comes into contact with them.)
Shea Butter
Shea butter is the ish. It really is. The reason why it's considered to be a "superfood for your skin" is because it has a combination of nutrients (including vitamins A and E) and essential fatty acids that helps your skin to produce collagen, soften scars, reduce skin inflammation, seal ends of your hair and heal chapped lips. It's a great base for DIY deodorant as well (you can cop a great recipe here).
Something else that's special about shea butter is it's able to coat your eyebrows' and eyelashes' hair follicles as it provides vitamins to help them thrive. It's pretty common to notice that your eyebrows seem thicker, even after your first use.
How to Apply: For your eyebrows, all you need to do is scrape a little bit of shea butter out of its container and gently massage your eyebrows with it. Then use an eyebrow brush to smooth your eyebrows over. For your eyelashes, just rub a tiny amount between one of your index fingers and thumbs until the butter melts. Glide your index finger along the top of your eyelid where your eyelashes are. Do this before turning in every night. Growth should be noticeable in 4-6 weeks.
Onion Juice
Onion juice is great for our health in a myriad of ways. Thanks to the sulfur, vitamins B and C and potassium that's in onions, if you consume them on a regular basis, they will help to maintain your heart health, fight cancer cells, boost bone density and fight off bacteria that can lead to infections up the road. Since onions also have properties that strengthen hair follicles while increasing your hair's volume too, that's what makes it another awesome treatment for your eyebrows and eyelashes.
How to Apply: Onions are pretty potent, so of course you don't want the juice to get into your eyes. As far as your eyebrows go, once you DIY some onion juice (there's a cool recipe here), you can apply it directly onto your brows. Dip a Q-tip into the juice and let it sit on your brows for 10 minutes. Then, with a wet washcloth, thoroughly wipe the onion juice off of them. If you want your eyelashes to get in on the action, drinking a little onion juice is the route that you should take. If you add some honey to it, you'll instantly have a potent all-natural cough syrup too.
Fenugreek
Something that I've been taking for a while now is fenugreek supplements. I do it because, believe it or not, it keeps my breasts "perky", thanks to the phytoestrogen that's in it (if you're a new mom, it helps to get your milk flowing too). Some other things that fenugreek does is it regulates blood sugar levels, boosts the libido in men as well as in women, balances cholesterol levels, relieves menstrual cramps, maintains liver and kidney health, and can even help to reduce a virus-related fever. Something else that the properties in fenugreek does is strengthen hair follicles. Plus, the lecithin that's in it can help your eyebrows to retain their natural color and even slow down premature greying.
How to Apply: This particular remedy is best for your eyebrows only. If you soak one-fourth cup of fenugreek seeds overnight and grind them into a paste the following day, it will create a paste that you can put directly onto your eyebrows. Do this twice a week. You'll see results in around five weeks.
Coconut Oil & Olive Oil
The combination of coconut oil and olive oil is a pretty impressive one. Coconut oil has fatty acids, lauric acid, Vitamin E and iron that all work together to support your brain, kill various forms of bacteria, viruses and fungi, satisfy intense hunger cravings, reduce eczema symptoms, improve oral health and deeply moisturize your skin. Virgin (unrefined) olive oil is loaded with healthy monounsaturated fats, vitamins A and E, polyphenols, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties and antioxidants that will protect against heart disease, reduce type 2 diabetes risk, treat rheumatoid arthritis and even improve bone health.
The fatty acids in the coconut oil supports the protein that your hair is made out of while the Vitamin A in olive oil will stimulate the production of sebum in your hair follicles so that your eyebrows and eyelashes are both strong and well-conditioned.
How to Apply: If you scoop out a half teaspoon of coconut oil, add a half teaspoon of olive oil to that and stir them both together, you can then apply a thin layer of the combination on your eyebrows and over your eyelids. Do this at nighttime and you should see thicker and healthier hair within 3-4 weeks.
Vitamin E
If you don't have a bottle of Vitamin E (or a multi-vitamin that contains it), you definitely should. It's a fat-soluble oil that can deeply moisturize your skin, heal wounds, smooth out scars and fight signs of aging. Thanks to the emollients that it contains, Vitamin E can actually balance the sebum that your skin naturally produces. Also, thanks to all of the antioxidants that are in it, Vitamin E can also help to prevent infection too. Vitamin E is great on the eyebrows and eyelashes tip because it contains compounds that can increase blood circulation to your hair's follicles while strengthening the hair that comes out of them at the same time.
How to Apply: Vitamin E is super easy to apply. Use a needle to pop a hole into a Vitamin E capsule. As you squeeze the capsule, rub the oil over your eyebrows. When it comes to your eyelashes, because this type of oil is a little on the sticky side, just keep in mind that a very little bit goes a long way. Mixing a half teaspoon of almond oil with the oil from a capsule, then apply the combo to a disposable mascara wand. 3-4 weeks should give you some of the results you've been looking for.
Aloe Vera
Aloe vera is a plant that contains around 75 different components including vitamins A, several Bs, C and E along with calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and copper. So, it's no wonder that it's such a powerhouse with regards to maintaining our health. If you consume 100 percent pure Aloe vera juice, it will build your immune system, maintain your digestion, lower your cholesterol levels, relieve arthritic pain and can relieve constipation. If you apply it onto your skin in gel form, Aloe vera has antifungal elements that can treat dandruff on your scalp, soothe psoriasis and, thanks to the antioxidants that are in the plant, it can relieve chapped lips and tone your skin as well. Also, if you apply Aloe vera, in gel form, to your eyebrows and eyelashes, it can strengthen your hair follicles so that there is less shedding.
How to Apply: With a disposable mascara wand, put a thin layer of 100 pure Aloe vera gel onto your eyebrows and eyelashes before turning in at night, then wash your face in the morning as usual. Noticeable results should occur within a couple of weeks.
Biotin-Rich Foods
Biotin is a vitamin that all of us need. It improves the quality of our skin, strengthens our nails, stabilizes our blood sugar levels, boosts our energy levels and even helps to keep our thyroid levels in check. You know what else it does? It makes our hair healthier as it helps it to appear thicker too. So, if you're looking for an "inside out" way to get your eyebrows and eyelashes to flourish, getting more biotin-rich foods into your diet is definitely one of the best ways to do it.
Foods You Should Eat More Often: Next time you're at the grocery store, make sure to pick up sweet potatoes, cheese, eggs, mushrooms, spinach, nuts, avocados, almonds and sunflower seeds. All of them will give you the biotin boost you've been seeking so that your eyebrows and eyelashes are more glorious than ever, girl. Enjoy!
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A Goddard College graduate, who earned an MFA from Pratt Institute and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Marymount Manhattan College, Mahogany offers unapologetic realness with a side of grace and empowerment. "I started touring locally. I started creating chat books so that those poems will go in the hands of the people who were sitting in the rooms," she shared.
"And then I started facilitating poetry workshops, so I used my chat books as curriculum. And that, in turn, allowed me to further invest in my art and show the community and people who were hiring me that it wasn't just a one-off, that it's not just, you know, a fly by night—that I am invested in this art as much as I am invested in your community, in your children's learning, in our growth."
Mahogany has a special way of moving audiences, and her superpower sparks shifts in perspective, post-performance introspection, and strengthening of community bonds, especially among Black women. (One can undeniably recognize her gift for arousal of the spirit and mind merely from her listening to her insights from the other side of a Google Hangout call. I can only imagine the soul-stirring, top-tier sensory encounter when watching her perform in person.)
In this chat with xoNecole, Mahogany reflects on sustaining a creative career, the aftermath of writing a banned book, and using poetry for both healing, community-building, and activism.
Anthony Artis
xoNecole: What are three key things that have laid the foundation for a sustainable creative career for you?
Mahogany L Browne: What has helped me is that I'm willing to go in being an expert at knowing poetry and knowing the way in which art can change the landscape of our lives, not just as a poet, but also as a poetry facilitator. How you move through classes, those things are mastered, right? So when I go into another space that's maybe tech-heavy, I don't mind learning and being, you know, a student of the wonder of how we can make this magic, work together.
Two, you’ve got to know how to pivot. Sometimes we say, ‘Alright, this is what my life is going to be. I'm going to be a New York Times best-selling author. I'm going to, you know, have an album that's Grammy-nominated. And then, say you get dropped from your record label. That doesn't mean you can't make an album anymore. You can also still create an album that can be submitted to the Grammys. So, what does a pivot look like as an artist who doesn't have an institution behind them? Pivot being a student of the wonder.
Relationships also really help. How do I serve the community? And in turn, that tells me how the community can show up. For me, I have long-standing ties with a community that will outlast my one life. So, what does it mean to create space where these relationships can develop, can be nurtured, can be rooted, can be cultivated? Creating space—it happens through relationships.
xoN: With today’s economic challenges, what does your current creative process look like, and what are you working on?
MB: I’m always thinking five years ahead. I just reviewed the pages for two children’s books and recently released a YA novel. I’m drafting an adult fiction manuscript now.
Anything I create is founded with the root of poetry, but it can exist in captions. It can exist in commercials. It can exist as a musical. So that's where I’m at now.
xoN: You started performing "Black Girl Magic" in 2013, had an acclaimed performance of it via PBS and the work went on to viral success shortly after. Talk more about the inspiration. And what do you think about the continued relevance more than a decade later?
MB: I wrote it as a rally cry for the mothers who had been keeping themselves truly in harm's way by, you know, being a part of the community right after the death of their child or their loved one. They are usually mothers of victims of police brutality—and just seeing how they showed up in these community spaces, they are devout to the cause but obviously still grieving.
"I wanted this poem to be just a space of reclamation, of joy and of you, of your light, of your shine, of your brilliance, in any which way in which you fashion. Every room you enter is the room you deserve to be in. What does it mean to have a poem like that that exists?"
And the first time I did the poem, the Weeping that occurred, right? It was like this blood-letting of sorts. The next time I performed it, I'm moved to tears because I'm seeing how it's affecting other women who have just been waiting to hear, ‘You belong. You deserve. You are good. We see you. Thank you, despite everything that they said to make you regret being born in this beautiful brown, dark-skinned, light-skinned, but Black body.’
Black women are the backbone—period. Point blank. And so, that that poem became a necessity, not just to the fortitude of Black women in the community, but like you know, in service of healing the Black women.
xoN: One of your books was banned at a school in Boston, and it was later reinstated due to parental and activist support. What was that experience like?
MB: Well, I think it happened because they were racist. That's it. Point blank. The reversal of it was empowering, right? I realized, oh, I thought we just had to sit here and be on a banned book list. But no, parents are actually the leaders of this charge.
So to see that, the parents said, ‘Nah, we're not gonna let you take this book out of my baby’s school just because it's a Black kid on the front saying, ‘Woke’ and they're talking about being a global citizen. They're talking about accountability. They're talking about accessibility. They're talking about allyship, and you don't want them to have compassion or empathy or have even an understanding, right? So no, we rebuke that, and we want this book here anyway.’ To see that happen in that way. I was, like, reaffirmed. Absolutely.
xoN: You recently organized the Black Girl Magic Ball at the Lincoln Center in New York. Honorees included author and entrepreneur Rachel Cargle and National Black Theater CEO Sade Lythcott. What impact did it have and what expanded legacy do you hope to leave with your creative works?
MB: I was really interested in not celebrating just the book, but celebrating the community that made the book possible. And so I gave out five awards to women doing that thing, like, what does it mean to be a Black girl in this world?
I just thought it was gonna be an amazing time. Everybody's gonna dress up—we're gonna celebrate each other. And boom, I then realized that it responded to like a gaping hole. There was a missing thing for Black girls of all walks of life, all ages, right?
"It's very intergenerational. That was intentional to come together and celebrate just being us."
You have all these instances where just being you is either the butt of a joke or it's diminished and not worthy of a specific title in these larger institutions. So what does it mean to just to be loved up on and celebrated?
It felt like a self-care project at first. You know, for the first couple of years, folks were coming and they were getting that sisterhood. They were getting that tribe work that they were missing in their everyday lives.
I love the Black Girl Magic Ball because we got us. If I go out with a bang, they'll remember that Mahogany worked her a** off to make sure all the Black girls everywhere knew that she was the light. We are the blueprint.
For more information on Mahogany L. Browne, her work, and her future projects, visit her website or follow her on IG @mobrowne.
Featured image by Anthony Artis
