I Bleached My Eyebrows Like Dove Cameron, And Neither Of Us Recommend It
Been there, done that, never DIYing it again.
Bleached brows are having a major moment. While celebs are testing out various levels of bleached — or, in Doja Cat’s case, totally nonexistent — eyebrows, fans have mainly seen the final product and rarely witnessed the actual process of eyebrow bleaching. At least that’s how it was before Dove Cameron logged into TikTok on Wednesday, Aug. 6 to upload a video of herself bleaching her own eyebrows with her bestie. Cameron did not recommend trying this trend at home and I totally feel her. Back on March 19, 2020, I bleached my own eyebrows. It was fun at first, then questionable, and then a major regret, so, it’s safe to say I too am staunchly opposed to trying brow bleaching on your own.
Watching Dove Cameron bleach her eyebrows on TikTok put me on a roller coaster ride of emotion. On one hand, having bleached my own brows during one late night of boredom, just because, I totally get where Cameron was coming from. On the other hand, DIY brow bleaching is a really risky move as both of us learned the hard way. While, technically, nothing went wrong during the actual bleaching of Cameron’s brows, the semi-permanent look is jarring when you first see it. I remember going from “this is so fun!” to “oh my god, what have I done?” in about three seconds flat and Cameron had the exact same reaction.
Cameron’s brow journey began when and where most questionable hair journeys do: late at night, in a bathroom with a friend hyping her up. Alongside her bestie Valentina Cy, and with Avril Lavigne and Doja Cat blasting in the background, Cameron began the DIY project. While things started strong, Cameron eventually captioned the video, “don’t do literally anything that we did in this video we did everything wrong.”
From the jump, choices are made. The bleach Cy and Cameron chose for the experiment is a regular, drugstore bleaching kit you can find at any CVS, Walgreens, or whatever pharmacy you run to when the hair dyeing itch hits. I would guess they used Splat’s Bleach Kit since it includes straightforward instructions, an applicator, and gloves, and it’s what I used to bleach my brows. Stars, they’re truly just like us.
While the two BFFs get to mixing and prepping their DIY brow bleaching goodies, the doubt seemed to begin to seep in. At this point, they could have backed out. “This is a horrible idea,” Cy said and then promptly applied her first round of bleach. Gotta love the commitment. That said, as I also learned the hard way, brows aren’t easy to bleach. The color in eyebrow hairs doesn’t lift easily so, rather than having gorgeously bleached brows after one application, both young women were left with a brassy, patchy look I know too well. “Okay, we’re at a strawberry blonde,” Cy said. Cameron, less optimistic, added “it looks bad.” At this point in the video, Cameron mentioned that the sun was coming up aka it was the perfect time to go in with the second round of bleach.
Once the second bleach process was done, the reality of what Cy and Cameron crept in. Cameron, off camera, screamed, “I don’t like it, I don’t like,” and “this is horrible.” Looking back at the TikTok I made immediately following my hack bleach job, I can say I felt the exact same way. But, as any good friend should, Cy tried to pump her back up. “We actually do look good,” Cy says. Since the initial experiment, I think Cameron’s come around.
Once the damage was done, Cameron embraced the look. On Wednesday, Aug. 10, the musician posted a selfie of her look on Instagram with the caption “Fab.” Her brows are pretty evenly blonde, almost impossible to see and, all glammed up, her vibe is very modelesque. However, Cameron is still probably riding the high of impulsive hair decisions, and I hope she doesn’t crash the way I did.
I never really came around to my bleached brow look. Still, I’ve since repeated the process about three times hoping for new results. Luckily, if Cameron does change her mind about her bleached brows, it doesn’t take long to grow them back out. Sure, I went through a terrible, patchy, zebra-looking phase as my dark brows grew back in, but Cameron has a whole glam team ready to step in for her. If all else fails, at the end of the day, there’s always Dipbrow.
