


If you’re anything like me, you’d rather go naked than without your eyebrows. Unfortunately letting my jumbalayas loose comes with all sorts of legal issues so eyebrows it is. My main issue with my natural brows is the weird shortness of them in relation to my eyes. Also, my eyebrows are completely different to each other. I know they say that eyebrows are sisters and not twins but mine are more like second cousins twice-removed-in-law. I use eyebrow products to elongate the shape and fill in the sparse areas, be it pencil, shadow or wax.
Unless you’ve been living the life of a hermit you’ll probably have heard about the Anastasia Brow Wiz. It’s got a waxy tiny-nibbed pencil on one side (sorry about the shoddy shadowy photo!) and a spoolie brush on the other. Mine is in the shade ‘Ebony’ which you can see is an ashy dark brown rather than black (I believe Ebony is the darkest shade available which is just as well – I learned the hard way NEVER to use black products on your eyebrows even if they are black!). You can see that the colour match is pretty perfect, which is something that the Topshop Brow Pencil (review here) missed for me.
I’m going to be honest and say that the first time I used this, I was a bit disappointed. My eyebrows needed threading and were a bit messy, and I found that using the Brow Wiz made things even messier looking. Also, my foundation hadn’t set yet and my skin was a little slippery so the pigmentation didn’t come off all that well. I was genuinely baffled by the hype.
But then I got my eyebrows freshly threaded and tried Brow Wiz again on a dry face and everything changed. Because it’s not super pigmented, it means you can really go to town with shaping your brows without ending up looking like Helga from Hey Arnold. The teeny tiny nib makes drawing on hairs much easier and the colour match is the best I’ve ever come across.
Being a pencil, obviously it won’t last as long as Anastasia DipBrow but it still gives it a ruddy good go. I’ve worn this during my gym sessions and it’s held up well and hasn’t needed touching up. It’s also a lot quicker to get a decent result, and getting my eyebrows to look acceptable doesn’t take half as long as it does with other products.
I was going to repurchase my Topshop pencil but having got the hang of Brow Wiz, this is definitely taking its place. It’s just a shame it’s more than double the price!
All in all, I’m recommending Anastasia Brow Wiz with gusto, especially if you’re after a natural look (if you want a more sculpted look and have more time on your hands I’d go for the DipBrow). Just remember to make sure your base has completely dried before attempting to use it, and pluck any stray hairs that might be bringing your polished look down.
Brow products are notoriously hard to colour match online so if you happen to be in London, Blow Ltd in Covent Garden stocks a range of Anastasia products if you want to test them out in the flesh.
Has anyone else tried this? Did you need to give it a second chance too?
Anastasia Brow Wiz is available at Cult Beauty and Blow Ltd for £15.50