Brows shape the face more than any other part of a makeup routine, which makes it odd how often the category gets skipped. The Faberlic brow pencil and its neighbours in the range cover four quite different jobs — picking the right one matters more than picking the right brand.
Four formats
Pencil. The obvious starting point. A fine tip draws hair-like strokes; a thicker one fills shape. Right for brows that mostly exist but need tidying.
Powder. Softest, most diffused result. Best on already-full brows that just want a little depth and a defined tail.
Gel. Two versions. Clear gel sets stray hairs and adds no colour. Tinted gel colours the hairs and holds them at once — the fastest everyday option by a wide margin.
Pomade. A dense cream for sharply defined shape. Needs a brush and some practice, but covers gaps better than anything else here.
Products and shades rotate with the catalogue, which refreshes roughly every three weeks. See the current catalogue on faberlic.com for what is available.
The shade rule people get backwards
Do not match your hair colour. That produces brows that read as heavy and drawn on.
- Light hair — one to two shades darker
- Dark hair — one shade lighter
- Red hair and warm blondes — warm browns, never grey
- Grey or ash blonde — taupe, a grey-brown with no red in it
And when torn between two shades, take the lighter one. Slightly under-filled brows look natural; overly dark brows never do.
If you have never filled brows in
- Brush the hairs upward with a spoolie — this shows where the real gaps are, as opposed to hairs merely lying badly
- Fill only the sparse patches, not the whole brow
- Define the tail, which is usually the thinnest part
- Set with clear gel
A fair number of people discover at step one that gel alone is enough, and that their brows were untidy rather than sparse.
What makeup cannot do
Brow products style what grows. A wide gap cannot be filled convincingly with any pencil — that needs regrowth time or a professional treatment.
Noticeable, rapid brow loss, thinning from the outer edge, or shedding accompanied by itching or flaking skin is worth raising with a doctor. Thyroid issues and skin conditions both show up there, and a new pencil is not the answer.
Other categories are covered in the makeup section.