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Jaden · Veteran Member

secrist eyebrow pencils

Buffington · Guru

The pencils that Secrist carries for eyebrows are supposed to be permanent after a while. You would make your brows and let the doll sit for a few days. The pencil marks are said to absorb into the vinyl and become permanent.
The nice thing about colored pencils (Prismacolor are supposed to be the best for this) is that you can wipe it off with soap/water within the first day so if you're not satisfied with them, at that point they won't be permanent.
Also as you stated, the point of the pencil can be sharpened to a nice thin point making it easier to draw thin hairs.

When you are done and have let the brows sit for a few days, you can also use a matte air dry sealer over them if you're worried about them at all. Duncan brand acrylic sealer is great and you should be able to get it at any ceramics studio/store. I have used Duncan on my chalked ceramic peices and my doll lips (semi-gloss) for over 20 years and it's still going strong.

I know what you mean about the brushes... I use a very thin (can't remember what size) script/liner brush for making my brows. If I press too hard (which is not really hard but seems so) then I get wider hairs.

Hope this helps

Jaden · Veteran Member

Thanks Pat for your quick reply!!! Right now I'm reborning a berenguer used play doll. I'm assuming that the eyebrow pencils Secrist sells would be permanent marks on ANY vinyl doll after a few days-am I correct in my assumption??? Am I also correct in assuming that I can sharpen these eyebrow pencils with any pencil sharpener--I have a pencil sharpener that I sharpen all my lead #2 pencils with. I ask this because I've never worked with eyebrow pencils before and you've got me excited about using them on my next doll. Thanks for all your great advice!!!!

Play Days Dolls · Guru

Jaden, you are correct that you can sharpen the eyebrow pencils as you would sharpen any pencil, and the pencil should work on the used Berenguer play doll.

I purchased a few of the Prismacolor pencils at Michael's long before they were ever sold on the Secrist website. To be perfectly honest, I'm not a fan of the pencils because I can't seem to make them stay permanent. Marks made with the pencil have faded or worn off when I was rooting. I'm sure it's my fault because I lack patience to let the pencil become permanent and began handling the head too soon. I just go crazy watching paint dry.

A friend always rooted her eyebrows because she had trouble painting them on. Now that Secrist came out with the eyebrow brush, she has no trouble painting the brows.

If you compare your 20/0 script liner to the Secrist eyebrow brush, I bet the hairs in the Secrist brush are longer. I think the length and the sparseness of the hairs makes a difference. You can try removing a few hairs from your 20/0 liner to see if that helps.

Good luck! Let us know what finally works best for you, okay?

Jaden · Veteran Member

Thanks Linda for the info!!! I find that quite amusing that you say you don't have much patience when it comes to waiting for the colored pencil marks to dry and yet I view you as someone with a ton of patience because of your remark about how the pencil marks rubbed off while you were micro-rooting each hair into your dolls head!!!!Now that takes PATIENCE!!! Last couple dolls I did--I just slapped wigs on them because I didn't want to take the time for micro-rooting. Not that I've given up on it-I'm postponing my lesson on patience until I work on a softer doll kit head!--Jaden

Tombo · Member

Prismacolor pencils also work like a dream for veining and the like.

Buffington · Guru

I use a longer script/liner brush not so much because it's got fewer hairs, but because it will hold more paint in the base of the brush and is more pointed. This allows me to not only draw thinner lines but not have to go back and get more paint on my brush before I'm done with drawing a few hairs. If you have less hairs you have to go back for paint more often. It also allows for a more continuous hair stroke. KNIM?

I always load the paint into my brush and then lay it kind of sideways and do a "roll while dragging" it type movement across a smooth tile or flat dish. This usually insures that I get a nice sharp point while not removing much paint from the brush.

Hope this explains it a little better. It's actually all in what you get used to. I was tops in my ceramic class for painting eyes and lashes. Everyone used to have me do them on anything they were painting with eyes. I finally got so busy with doing all that I had to charge $1 per eye lol. But that is where I learned about how to paint hairs and with what kind of brush. Just takes practice. You can actually take some acrylic paint, a small ceramic tile, and a liner/script brush (I think mine is a 10/0 or thinner) and practice this. When your tile gets full of brush strokes, just wash it off and start over :)

Play Days Dolls · Guru

LOL... Jaden, I guess you are right. I have more patience with rooting because I'm doing something with my hands as opposed to just watching the paint dry.