Show me a woman who doesn't have - or has had - some sort of eyebrow anxiety and I will show you a fibber. Brows are the thing that, in cosmetic terms, make fools of us all from time to time. I am thinking, pointedly, of the spider's leg horizontal lines that stretched above our eyes as naive 14 year olds, of the marker-pen dense brows that we thought made us look powerful and business-like (quite the opposite) and of those unfortunate incidents with the tweezers that leave one brow wonky and therefore, as though you are permanently in a state of Sherlock-ian suspicion. 

It's the one area that we need the most help in. And where help is needed, beauty tutorials go. Even if you are not the sort to spend a forgotten Sunday afternoon gazing, slack-jawed at the laptop while several men and women across the world show you how to measure your face with a pencil (oddly enchanting), brow tutorials genuinely do have something for us all. 

So, I have hand-selected the best five brow tutorials I've come by on the web, each one has taught me something I never knew about brows, and all of them have taught me one important truth: there's no one right answer - you can do many things with a brow, just as you can your hair. And, if you're genuinely able to nail a new brow look, you'll have cracked the secret code of make-up forever more...

In no particular order:

1. Pixiwoo - Ombre Brows and Lips Make-up Tutorial 

Ok, it's not exclusively about brows, but how many times have you heard about the ombre brow before? Exactly. And - crucially - Samantha Chapman creates make-up looks you'll actually want to ape (a surprisingly rare thing among tutorials). 

 

2. The Chic Natural - The Perfect Brow Tutorial 

Just the thing for precision-brow fanatics, this is the ultimate tutorial for all those inclined to highlight, blend, conceal and 'extend the tail'. It's a lot of effort, granted, but the result is both totally transformative and yet passes for natural too. 

 

3. Charlotte Tibury - The Perfect Brow 

An advocate of the '3-dot procedure', Charlotte Tilbury is an unstoppable force in the beauty world, not least because she is the woman that birth beauty trends before they hit the blogosphere, by way of her catwalk beauty work. She cleverly combines the twin-aims of creating flattering make-up that has a modern, trend-savvy twist in her tutorials, this one is no exception. 

 

4. Goss Make-up Artist - Natural Eyebrow Routine for Beautiful Looking Brows

What I like about Goss, is that, as a make-up artist, he doesn't subscribe to tried and tested methods of applying make-up for the most transformative results. Case in point, contraversially, he's against the hailed old method of using an eyebrow pencil to measure the nostril against where the brow should start. He rewrites the rules. 

 

5. Michelle Phan - Brow 101

Michelle Phan's voice is like a handful of pear drops on a sunny day. It is impossible not to be soothed by her. But, make no mistake, she really knows her stuff. In this tutorial from back in 2012, we learn that Michelle believes a sophisticated brow is one which isn't generous with arch and that the name of the brush on the end of a brow pencil is in fact, a 'spooly.' Perkier, happier brows await.