Raising your eyebrows naturally comes down to strengthening the one muscle responsible for lifting them, keeping the skin around them firm, and using a few visual tricks that create the appearance of a higher brow. There’s no overnight fix, but a combination of targeted exercises, skin care, and grooming can produce a noticeable difference over several weeks.
The One Muscle That Lifts Your Brows
A single muscle controls upward eyebrow movement: the frontalis, a broad sheet of muscle that spans your forehead. Every time you look surprised or deliberately raise your brows, the frontalis is doing all the work. Working against it are three muscles that pull the brows downward, including the one that circles your eye socket and the small muscles between your brows that create frown lines. The resting position of your eyebrows is essentially a tug-of-war between the frontalis pulling up and these depressor muscles pulling down.
This balance shifts over time. As the frontalis weakens with age or underuse, the depressor muscles win out and brows gradually settle lower. That’s why any natural lifting strategy starts with the frontalis.
Facial Exercises That Target Brow Height
Facial exercises, sometimes called face yoga, can change the tone and stiffness of forehead muscles when done consistently. A 2025 clinical trial in the journal Medicina tested an eight-week face yoga program on middle-aged women. Participants did guided sessions twice a week and a home program five days a week, each lasting about 30 minutes. The study found significant changes in the tone and stiffness of the frontalis muscle.
Here’s the catch: the study also noted that decreased frontalis activation combined with increased tone in the muscles around the eye was associated with eyebrow drooping. That means you need to focus specifically on strengthening the frontalis rather than just doing random facial exercises. Exercises that work the muscles around the eyes without also engaging the forehead could theoretically make things worse.
Effective Frontalis Exercises
- Brow raises with resistance: Place your fingertips just above each eyebrow and press gently downward. Then raise your eyebrows against that resistance. Hold for 5 seconds, release, and repeat 10 to 15 times. The resistance forces the frontalis to work harder than a simple brow raise.
- Wide-eye hold: Open your eyes as wide as possible while raising your brows toward your hairline. Hold for 10 seconds without wrinkling your forehead excessively. Repeat 10 times. This isolates the frontalis while stretching the depressor muscles.
- Alternating brow lifts: Try raising one eyebrow at a time (not everyone can do this initially). Practicing unilateral control builds frontalis strength on each side independently, which helps with asymmetry.
Based on the research timeline, plan on at least eight weeks of daily practice before expecting visible changes. Thirty minutes a day is ideal, but even 10 to 15 minutes focused specifically on the forehead area is a reasonable starting point.
Skin Firmness Around the Brows
Muscle tone is only half the equation. The skin and connective tissue overlying the brow area also determine how high or low your eyebrows sit. As collagen and elastin break down, skin loses its ability to snap back, and gravity pulls the brow tissue downward. Improving skin elasticity in the forehead and temple region creates a firmer “canvas” that holds the brow in a higher position.
Collagen Supplements
A systematic review and meta-analysis found that oral collagen supplements at doses of 1 to 10 grams per day significantly increased skin elasticity across multiple studies. The most commonly used dose was about 3.5 to 4 grams daily. Three separate studies using precise skin-elasticity measurements all confirmed significant improvements. One effective formulation combined 2.5 grams of collagen peptides with vitamin C, zinc, vitamin E, and biotin. Another used just 1 gram of low-molecular-weight collagen peptide paired with vitamin C.
The key detail is “low molecular weight” or “hydrolyzed” collagen, which breaks the protein into small enough pieces for your body to absorb and use. Vitamin C matters because your body can’t build new collagen without it.
Topical Peptide Serums
Certain peptide serums target the forehead and eye area specifically. A randomized, double-blind clinical study tested a serum containing a blend of five muscle-relaxing peptides along with three peptides that stimulate collagen and elastin production. The serum produced both short-term smoothing and long-term improvements in fine lines across the forehead and around the eyes. The muscle-relaxing peptides work by reducing the intensity of the contractions that pull brows downward, while the reparative peptides rebuild the structural proteins in the skin. Look for serums marketed for “expression lines” that list peptides and botanical antioxidants in their ingredients.
Massage and Lymphatic Drainage
Puffiness around the brows and upper eyelids can make your brow line look heavier and lower than it actually is. Gentle upward massage along the brow bone and forehead helps move lymphatic fluid that accumulates overnight or during periods of inflammation. Gua sha, a technique using a flat stone tool, creates gentle pressure that encourages this fluid to drain. Cleveland Clinic notes that the motion may lessen facial puffiness and leave the area looking more lifted and refreshed.
For the brow area specifically, use light upward strokes from the inner brow toward the temple, then sweep across the temple and down toward the ear where lymph nodes can process the fluid. Do this in the morning when puffiness tends to be worst. The effect is temporary but cumulative: regular drainage prevents chronic fluid buildup that weighs down the tissue.
Sleep Position and Brow Asymmetry
If one brow sits noticeably lower than the other, your sleep position may be contributing. A study published in 2021 found that people who consistently sleep on one side develop a significantly lower upper eyelid position on that side. The researchers did not find the same effect on central eyebrow position, but the lower eyelid position creates the visual impression of a drooping brow on the sleep side. Over years, the cumulative compression from a pillow can stretch skin and shift soft tissue.
Sleeping on your back eliminates this asymmetric pressure entirely. If you can’t manage that, alternating sides each night distributes the effect more evenly. Silk or satin pillowcases also reduce friction and skin dragging compared to cotton.
Grooming for a Visually Higher Brow
The fastest way to make your brows appear lifted is strategic grooming. The arch placement matters more than almost any other factor. For most women, the highest point of the arch looks most natural when it falls about two-thirds of the way from the inner corner of the brow toward the tail. Placing the arch too close to the center creates a surprised look; placing it too far out flattens the brow and makes it look lower.
A few specific techniques create immediate visual lift:
- Clean up below the arch: Removing stray hairs from underneath the highest point of the brow creates more visible space between the brow and the eye, which reads as “lifted.”
- Avoid over-plucking above: Hairs above the brow define its top border. Removing them lowers the entire brow line.
- Use a brow pencil or gel strategically: Filling in the arch area and brushing brow hairs upward with a clear gel adds height to the brow’s peak. Even a millimeter of difference in arch height changes how lifted the brow appears.
- Highlight beneath the arch: A light concealer or highlighter applied just below the arch’s peak creates contrast that emphasizes the lift.
Small differences in brow placement, even a couple of millimeters, have a surprisingly large impact on how high and open the eye area looks. This is the one strategy that produces results the same day.
Putting It All Together
The most effective approach combines all of these strategies on different timelines. Grooming gives you an immediate visual lift. Massage and lymphatic drainage reduce puffiness within minutes. Facial exercises targeting the frontalis build muscle tone over eight or more weeks. Collagen supplements and peptide serums improve skin firmness over several months. And adjusting your sleep position prevents further asymmetry from developing. None of these individually creates a dramatic change, but layered together they produce a noticeably higher, more defined brow line without any procedures.