Smashbox Brow Tech "Blonde" & Revlon Brow Fantasy "Dark Blonde" & Soap and Glory Archery "Love is Blonde"

Ooo yes, let's talk brows.  Up until a few months ago, 'doing' my brows was never part of my make-up routine.  I did pluck to prevent any stragglers, but other than that, they were generally left wild and free.

 

It wasn't until I had a particularly over-zealous plucking session, and took off far too much of my inner brow.  In a panic, I went in search of a brow pencil to rectify the bald patch I now had, and I found an old one in my Mum's make-up bag.  I'm talking SO old that I can't even tell you the make, as it had long rubbed off.  My Mum is also darker than me so the pencil was a deep brown, and I'll be honest, when I tentatively went in with light feathery strokes, I was expecting a make-up distaster of Greek tragedy proportions.

 

But to cut a long story short, it did kind of work, and I enjoyed the 'neatness' the pencil brought to my eye brow.  It finished my eye area off a bit, and looked more polished.

 

So.  Off I went in search of a more suitable brow product for myself.

 

As I said, brows are a WHOLE new concept to me, so I was a bit of a fish out of water.  I did a lot of blog trawling and the basic message I was getting was that blonde brows are a nightmare to colour match, and basically trial & error was the only way to go.

 

So!  3-4 months down the line, I've tried four brow products, two of which I didn't think to photograph before they ran out which I'm SO annoyed with myself about, so it's going to be official photos of those I'm afraid.

 

Right.  First up was Soap & Glory's Archery in "Love is Blonde" £10.00

 

 

To date, on my brow journey, this has probably been my most successful purchase.  I was drawn to the double ended design, as it has a crayon one end and a felt tip the other, and I didn't know whether I'd be a crayon or a felt tip kinda girl.  So what a marvellous way to try both!

 

The felt tip end, for me, didn't really do much.  It has SUCH a fine nib and the actual ink (is that what you'd call it!?) is really pale and watery.  It added a nice gloss to my brows, but as for filling them in...I didn't really think this did much.  But again, I am a brow novice, I might be missing the point...

 

But the crayon end..oo la la I'm a fan.  The colour was pretty much perfect for my brows...which are an ashy dark blonde I'd say.  I don't dye them or do anything to blend them with my uber blonde hair, so they're my natural hair colour.  So yeah, mousey, ashy, dirty blonde.

 

The crayon consistency isn't ideal in my opinion.  I found it to break off into little crumbly bits quite easily and its not particuarly soft or creamy.  It's quite hard and almost brittle, and you have it give it a good old rub to get decent colour pay-off.  But the colour makes this a winner hands down for me, as it isn't orange-y in the slightest and looks mega natural when on.  At £10 it is bit steep purely because you only get about 2cm of crayon so it runs out quite quickly.  It also isn't the world's most amazing product, it's just the colour that I think will appeal to a lot of ashy blondes out there.

 

OK next up iiiiis.....Smashbox Brow Tech in Blonde £17.00

 

 

 

 

 

 

This teeeeeeny tiny little brow product is a whopping £17 and I only bought it because of a Boots deal that was running over Christmas.  When it arrived, I was like ohhh my god it is SO small (0.7g to be exact).

  It comes with two brow powder sections and one larger brow wax bit. 

 

This was my first foray into the land of brow powder, and I had to buy a slanted brow brush for E.L.F. as well so I could apply it.

 

Now again, with this one, I would 100% recommend the colour to my blonde ladies out there.  It's such a gentle colour with an ashy undertone, and you get two shades in the pot which compliment each other really well. 

 

I also found the powder to be soft, very long lasting, and it covers your brows really evenly.  For a novice, I found the whole application of this product SO easy, and I think it's ideal for people who just want to fill in sparse brows.

 

But if you're looking (like me) for a just a small bit of shaping or 'neatening' from your brow product, then I'd say this isn't worth the price tag.  The powder nature of it means the overall effect on the brow is soft.  It didn't give me nice clean lines, and so whilst it gave a lovely 'natural' look, if I was going for a more graphic eye,I just felt I needed more precision.

 

And as with the felt tip nib of the Soap and Glory one, I have to confess the brow wax in this one....ABSOLUTELY no idea how you're supposed to use it.  I tried applying it using the brush and it went on super thick, you could blatently see it, and it didn't exactly tame my brows that well.  I tried my finger, no joy.  I tried an old mascara wand (cleaned up) and I couldn't get the product out of the pot as the wand just kept knocking the plastic edges.  Argh it was so frustrating!!  So the wax is a no for me.  Again...I'm probably applying it using the wrong tools or something, but oh well.

 

So my disastrous attempt at brow wax, led me to buy MAC's "Brow Set" gel in clear £13.00 

 

My brows being unruly is definitely one of my "brow issues" so I thought maybe Mac's gel could tame them.  Sorry for the generic photo from the site, but although my gel is still very much going, it's now gone a manky brown colour, and wasn't worthy of a blog pic.

 

Now this gel...hmm...what to say about it.  It has a very satisfying squelch  sound when you pull the wand out!  The wand is a standard mascara type design, and if I'm honest, I'd prefer a slightly smaller one to be able to get along the shape of my brows easier.

 

I do find that this smooths my brows down, and keeps them in place pretty well throughout the day.  It doesn't dry crispy and you can't tell you're wearing it (in a good way, not a bad way).  But I can't help but wonder if a high street dupe could do just as well.  Not that I can find a high street dupe.  I was hoping Collection or Rimmel or someone might do one, but I cannot find any!  The only one I can find is a clear mascara from Natural Collection and this dries hoooorrrrribly.  So maybe you do have to pay the MAC price tag to get this product.

 

It also lasts well, I use it pretty much everyday and have had it over 4 months, and it is still well over half full.  I guess the proof on this one will be in the repurchase.

 

 

Which brings me onto my most recent purchase...Revlon's Brow Fantasy in Dark Blonde. £6.99

 

 

 This caught my eye for two reasons....the brow gel (cheaper alternative to MAC??) and the colour, which looked pretty good.

 

The design is double ended, with a brow gel on one end with a mascara wand type applicator, and a brow pencil the other end.

 

First thing's first, the brow pencil is so soft and creamy.  It was a joy to apply and felt a lot more high end than a £6.99 product.  But alas!!  The colour!  For some reason when I applied this, it looked dreadful.  The pencil had some kind of red/golden undertone which meant it clashed with my natural brow colour and was sooo obvious as it was a completely different colour.  I despise 'obvious brow filling in' and this was a classic example of it.  I'm gutted as I think if the colour was right, this product would be a real little gem.

 

I'm going to continue to use up the gel end, as the tint is barely noticeable and the wand is slightly smaller than the MAC one, and it would be a waste just to dump it due to the pencil end.  And once again, the gel pretty much does what it says on the tin, much like the MAC gel. But all in all, a massive disappointment for me I'm afraid.

 

I swatched the Revlon pencil against the Smashbox powders below, and you can see the difference in undertone really clearly.

Revlon on the left, Smashbox on the right

 

 So..my brow journey continues.  What I'm desperate to find is a decent, soft/creamy brow pencil in a gentle ash blonde. Something I can get some precision out of.

 

If any one has ANY recommendations at all, then this straggly browed blogger would love to hear them..