Review| L'oreal Brow Stylist Plumper In Medium/Dark

I found the new L'oreal Brow Stylist Plumper ($7.99) for only $3 bucks at the flea market and decided it wouldn't hurt to try a drugstore dupe for the Benefit Gimme Brow. I got the Medium/Dark variety because the Light/Medium looked a little too light for my ashy grey brows. 

Is it a dupe? Kinda. 

It's a brow gel that can be combed through the entire brow without adding wayyy too much color, but it also does not have the little fibers characteristic of the Gimme Brow (or the $18 price tag) that gives your brows a fuller (hairy) look. 

It's still perfect for a lazy day and darkens the tail ends of my brows enough to make my face look more polished without being full on #GROUCHBROWS. I also enjoy the tiny applicator, but it tends to deposit a chunk of color right where you place it, so I would start with the tail and work the remaining product onto the front of your brows. I often find these chunks when vainly looking at my face during touch-ups at work, so I think brushing through my brows again with a clean spoolie is a must. 

It's not a bad dupe and not a dupe at all. If you have a decent amount of brow hairs already in place this will thicken up the overall look. Don't expect miracles to sprout if you have no hair existing. 

xo Be

Review| Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Brow Pen in Medium

Would it be strange to say that the Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Brow Color ($22) is too natural? Medium is the perfect ashy grey tone for darker eyebrow hairs that aren't brown, but the application and color combined makes me look like I have bushy, untamed eyebrows. 

I mean, that's not a bad thing right? Until I try to carve out a defined shape...and then it all goes to shit. The tiny felt tip makes it easy for me to fill in the bulk of my brows using short and light strokes, but it looks absolutely ridiculous when I try to draw on a tail (my biggest brow failure.)

The formula is light and watery and does not have a waxy texture or grippy feel. I guess that's also one thing I enjoy about brow products. Don't get me wrong, this stuff lasts all day as advertised! Still I cannot get over the fact that this stuff is just way too natural looking and gives me the bushy look I had from my teenage years. Not pretty. 

If you can ignore the intense and heavy handed highlight, you can see that my brows look very very blessed in the hairs department thanks to this brow pen. I almost want to go in with my tweezers and have a field day. 

I've done a swatch below comparing it (far right) to the Shu Hard 9 pencil in grey (middle, but not so grey looking) and the Hourglass brow pencil in Soft Brunette (far left.) See!? It's grey! Also note that the Shu pencil is very very waxy and needed a good pressing on the skin to show up, while the Stila version required 3 passes to show up that opaque. 

Who do I see using this? Two extremes: those already blessed with a good brow shape but lack volume in the body of their brows or those with minimal brow hairs who want to painstakingly feather them on. I ain't got time for dat, and a quick outline of my brows is sufficient enough to bring out the tail shape and define the boday. 

This one is going back. It's an amazing product...just not for me!

xo Be

Review| Etude House Drawing Eye Brow Pencil in #5

I'll keep this short and sweet. This stuff is a dupe for Anastasia Brow Wiz pencils, except even more appropriate for those who have little to no red tones in their eyebrows. And the best part, it's five bucks on EBay. Sure it took a month of gnarly sea voyages or whatever to get to me, but it's amazing! And did I mention cheap??

I use shade #5 which is a light grey. Sounds awful, but it's actually the same as my natural brow hair color. It's dual ended with a slanted tip pencil (think Hourglass) on one side and a spoolie on the other. I scrolled up all the way and found a decent amount of product that would last me for a few months. 

 Since the tip is slanted but a tad small you can easily turn it about and accommodate your brow shape. It's very hard and waxy when you swatch on your hands, but this is perfect for defining the upper and lower edges of my brows.

Then, I go in with the spoolie and brush from the bottom up to distribute the color evenly through the bulk of my brows. If I want to add more dimension to my brows, I'll set with a brow gel like Benefit's Gimme Brow. 

Even though my current hair color has a tinge of red, I still don't like that to show up in my brows. I didn't set with a gel in this picture, but you can barely even tell I filled in my brows...and I'm NOT blessed in the brow department. 

Okay, that's all. Be sure to find it on EBay and try it out for yourself. You might find it to be an affordable dupe (or even better!) for whatever pencil you're currently using. 

xo Be

First Look| Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade in Dark Brown

Let me tell you, I did not hop on the bandwagon on this one.

Not only did I purchase the Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade ($18 retail) eons ago back in 2013 for a Cyber Monday sale, I hadn't touched the thing since now. Apparently between all that passed time, everyone and their mother has discovered it, loves it, and wants to marry it. It's all over YouTube since everyone now has an "updated brow routine" in which their brows look very similar to Sharpied-on caterpillars.

But in honesty, 99% of the success of the dipbrow will depend on user application and technique. I had very shoddy technique when first using it and the learning curve was a little much for a damn brow product. In fact, it reminds me of Make Up For Ever's Aqua Brow product but in a jar
packaging, perhaps making it a little easier for you to dip your brush into it.

I can understand why it's so popular with people at the moment. While it's not revolutionary, it's an interesting approach to brows that's not powder or pencil.

• Very accommodating shade range: Blonde, Auburn, Dark Brown, Chocolate and Ebony. I think for those who prefer a lighter looking brow Blonde would work even if you have darker hair since the color payoff is super intense. Dark Brown has less red tones than Chocolate without being as intense as Ebony.
• It can be used as a brow filler or eyeliner because it's very smudge proof. I mean very, unless you have super oily skin. Since it's waterproof those living in humid weather or girls who like swimming with makeup will like it.
• If you have literally 4 brow hairs in total and can't get a brow powder to adhere to anything but skin, this will take care of the problem. You can create a whole new shape of brows!
• The 0.14 oz of product will last you your lifetime (well, until it dries out...) because you only need a little.

However, I still have my gripes with it.

• The color payoff is so intense and the range runs dark, meaning that you need to use a light hand and minimal product. If you even touch your brush to the pot, you will get too much.
• It's rather hard to mimic "hair-like strokes", especially when you're filling in the outer portions of the brow. It's easy for the product to just look like a block around your natural brow hairs.
• Therefore, while it lasts and lasts on the skin, your brows look rather unnatural and drawn on, even if you tried your best to mimic the natural appearance of you know, hair.

Warning, long read ahead regarding application:
I have found that the best technique discussed in the beauty community is to take the smallest amount of product and work into the back of your hand first so that you only get the residue onto your actual brows. Yes, it's a waste and completely moronic, but it really takes down the chances of you putting on too much pigment the first time.
Second, you should really focus the majority of the product on the outer tail of your brows and only bringing the rest of the product on the brush to the inner half. It's even better if you don't put any product on the inner part and use a spoolie to distribute the color in last. Of course, you should brush everything out when you're done.
As an extra step, you should go in with a tinted or clear brow gel to really bring forward the hairy texture of your brows (ew) so that it looks more natural. Of course the gel step is optional, but I find that it takes away the boxy shape created by using the pomade alone. Finally, you can clean up with a bit of concealer under and above the brow to really define the shape, and this step is only important if you already like that semi-artificial/#dembrowsonpoint sort of look.

On my left brow (your right) is the product done as "gently" as I could, but as you can see it's still a statement brow. I blame it on my generally big brow shape (sparse, but big) so I'd have to tweeze off a lot for it to look clean, but it would definitely be drawn on at that point. 

This is without any brow product. I could technically go out like this, but something about filling in brows makes me happy. I generally just extend the tail and give it some definition on the outer lines. 

The final look. Yeeech, still not a huge fan of these brows for daytime. I need to be rocking a full blown smokey eyes with lashes and glitter for this to even compute to the human eye. I was trying out the Tarte 12 Hour Full Coverage foundation in light-medium sand this day and as you can see it's a tad too light. Sigh. Medium Sand it is. 

This pomade hands down takes the cake for sculpted, perfect, and sometimes over the top brows that's definitely not for every day. Which makes sense, since there are way too many steps for the average person getting ready in the morning to go through unless they really, really cared.

As for me, I'm still taking the time to play with it and learning about how natural it looks through the loving comments of my husband (NOT). It's a very volatile product, but if you know how to use it properly it won't disappoint you.

xo, Be