If your eyes are the window to your soul, I guess your brows act as pretty important frames that define your whole face. Finding the brow shape, style and colour that suits you can be a total beauty transformer and well-groomed brows can bring your entire look together.
These days you could fill an entire makeup bag with brow products alone – eyebrows are officially a whole product category. Gels, powders, pencils, pomades and even brow serums have all crept into our makeup routines and the days of just filling in any sparse gaps are long gone. From feathery brows and ‘Disney brows’ to laminated styles, there are also dozens of trends to play around with.
So then, how to know which brow product is for you? Well, that’s the fun part. Experiment with different options until you find a formula that works.
How to choose the right brow product for you
Before we get into my recommended product list though, I can offer a few trusty tips to get you started. For definition and a sharp shape you’ll probably get on best with pencils, as their precise tips make light work of creating face framing arches.
If taming unruly hairs is your brow bugbear, try a gel or a pomade (think of them as the brow equivalent of a hybrid styling and setting spray).
Want that full, bushy brow look that Lily Collins, Cara Delevingne and co. keep rocking? Get acquainted with a powder. Like a 3D paint for your face, careful application of these can create the illusion of fuller brows.
To help in your quest to becoming a brow artiste, I’ve whittled down the entire brow category to the top six best brow-enhancing products of all time.
These are the bomb; the best eyebrow gels, pencils, pomades and brow products that people love, rate and go back to time and time again.
Best for a natural brow: Benefit Gimmebrow + Volumizing Brow Gel
Let’s not beat about the bush(y brow). The original version of this tinted gel was the first brow-enhancer I ever bought. I was introduced to it on a Benefit Counter about seven years ago, and it was a hard sell to get me to opt for something different. But then the brand introduced the volumising version and that has taken centre stage in my makeup bag ever since.
The formula is made up of tiny micro-fibres that add a faux fullness to brows in seconds. The mini brush and gel duo do everything that I want out of my brow product; fills in sparse gaps (of which I have many), adds volume for the illusion of bushier brows and sets hairs in place all day.
It’s so easy to use that even if you’re no makeup whizz you can handle this, and the result doesn’t look heavy or fake. It basically gives you your brows, done better. There are eight shades to choose from with a range of warm and cool undertones – I use the medium brown hue and it’s a perfect match.
Best for a defined brow: Charlotte Tilbury Brow Lift
This is the complete brow tool you didn’t know you needed. First up there’s a filling-in pencil and a hair taming spoolie – so far so standard. But then there’s an added built-in powder highlighter that you can use to create, define or enhance your natural brow arch. And that, as we say in the beauty biz, is the game-changer.
The pencil itself is the part that you’re going to use to add colour and define the brow – it’s rectangular in shape, which means you can either use it to fleck on single feathery extra hairs or to fill in any big bald patches.
It’s fairly soft so you need to be quite deliberate with your strokes, but the beauty of this is that you can build it up gradually to get just the finish you want. The colour range isn’t the greatest as there are only four combinations, but the addition of the highlighter to sculpt brows gets this product a bonus point from me.
Best for a ‘Disney brow’: Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade
Anastasia Beverly Hills is the brow brand. Founder Anastasia Soare is known as the ‘eyebrow queen’, a title I didn’t know I wanted until I found out that she’s responsible for crafting bespoke brows for celebrities such as Amal Clooney, J Lo, Michelle Obama and Oprah.
It was tough to pick just one favourite out of the range as the pencils are pretty great, but Dip Brow has gained a cult following for a reason.
It is very, very pigmented, so not for the brow naïve. This is the stuff you pick up when you want to build a bold, heavily accentuated brow – an expressive ‘Disney brow,’ in fact.
There are eleven shades and while they all have a rich colour pay off, the waxy formula is actually very buildable. Once you’ve got to grips with how much you need you can get clever with your pomade painting and build the colour up gradually.
Also, this stuff does not budge. If you have a night of dancing ahead of you, this is the product for you.
Best for a brushed up look: Glossier Boy Brow
Until recently I had never attempted feathery brows. I thought groomed, perfectly placed brows were the only way to go. And then along came Glossier. Fluffy, brushed up brows are like the bed head hair of the brow world.
Slightly dishevelled, super sexy and a lot harder to achieve than they look. Thank goodness then for the ‘all-in-one brow fluffer, filler, and shaper’ that is Boy Brow. The tinted gel is all you need if you’re wanting brushed up brows that actually stay in place.
Available in black, brown, auburn, blonde and clear, I use this whenever I want to create a brow that’s just a bit fluffier and thicker than usual.
Best for natural-looking brows: Refy Brow Pencil
According to Jess Hunt, the influencer and founder of beauty brand Refy, doing your brows requires a three-stage process, plus tweezers.
It’s why she developed the Refy Beauty Brow Kit; with a brow sculpting gel, a shading pomade and a defining pencil, the cult kit has everything you need to recreate the fanned out, fluffy brows that Jess is famous for.
Seeing as this piece is about the best individual products though, I’m plumping for the pencil as my top pick, although I know many who would say it’s sacrilege I haven’t chosen Refy Brow Sculpt…
The pencil is super-fine, with a round nib rather than the more commonly-seen square tip, so you can create very realistic hair-like strokes.
My usual gripe with pencils is that they are a bit lacklustre and either don’t show up, or rub off by 11am. Not this one though.
All three shades (light, medium, dark) are really pigmented and the colour arrives immediately – and boy does it stay there. Oh, and there’s a spoolie on the end to help unruly strays behave.
Best for faking fuller brows: Hourglass Arch Brow Sculpting Pencil
Is it cheating to add a three-in-one product to the list?
This is a masterful pencil that sneaks all the best bits of powder, wax and pencil into one slanted tip. The waxy formula adds the illusion of fullness to your brows by giving individual hairs a 3D effect, and the pencil allows utter control over dictating your brow shape and allows you to fill in any bald spots in a realistic manner.
To get the most out of this hybrid hero try using it against the hairs, then brush upwards using the spoolie on the other end for full, 3D brows.
;
