For years I was afraid of eyebrow pencils.
Well, maybe ‘afraid’ is a strong word – but I was certainly intimidated by them.
Filling in eyebrows was something my mum did, resulting in heavy brows that looked great on her, yes, but not very natural. I didn’t wear a lot of makeup and so was getting by with as few products as possible and didn’t deem eyebrow-filling necessary to my routine.
Then around my early 20s, thick, perfectly-sculpted eyebrows became the in thing (I blame Cara Delevingne and Camilla Belle). Sure enough, an eyebrow pencil became a staple tool in my makeup bag.
Listen: Zoe Foster Blake’s best beauty advice for the time-poor woman.
Still, I struggled with the application. It seemed once out of every 10 times I’d have my eyebrows “on fleek”, so to speak, while the other nine times they were gappy or so thick I had to wipe off the brown and start again.
I was frustrated at myself for not being able to master the look; after all, almost everyone else seemed to be able to wear eyebrow makeup and not look like Oscar the Grouch.
Now I know I was wrong to blame myself. I too could have had finely sculpted, filled in and yet natural-looking eyebrows — all I needed was the right pencil.
Enter: Benecos $9.95 Eye Brow Designer (which is a fancy way of saying it’s a pencil on one end and a brush on the other) in Blonde.