Benefits Brow Wow - Gimme Brow Review.

Benefit Gimme Brow, £17.50   I've had my eye set on this product for a while now. I spotted it on a US Bloggers Instagram and then had to wait a gruelling month or so for it to be released in the UK. However, the wait was well worth it because these dropped through my postbox on Friday and I can confirm, they're pretty amazing. These are everything I wanted the Mac brow sets to be and more. This product contains little fibres in the formula so as you deposit colour on to your brows it adds little fibres to your existing hairs to make your eyebrows look fuller and thicker. Who doesn't want that? The brush is teeny tiny, similar in size to the Clinique botom lash mascara but this works ideally for evenly spreading the product through your brows and ensuring you don't apply too much. Depending on how heavy you like to go with your brows you can always add another layer, although I wouldn't personally go in with more than two. This leaves your eyebrows looking naturally groomed but a better version of themselves. This retails for £17.50, comes in two shades - Light/Medium or Medium/Dark and most importantly for me, doesn't contain any shimmer. YAY. Mac - what's up with that? I really have fallen head over heels for this brow beauty - it's now available in stores so if you fancy a try head to a Benefit counter and ask them to apply a little for you.    In the photo below I'm wearing the Medium/Dark version.

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How To: Big Brows

 

Let me start by saying I'm no eyebrow expert. These are just tips and tricks that have worked for me..

For years I over plucked my eyebrows. If you want an idea of what they looked like before, have a look at this FOTD which includes an awful up close shot - oh how I cringed when I saw it! I pretty much had 'tadpole eyebrows' which for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, means I had a thick section at the start of the eyebrow and then the rest got thinner until they were almost non existent. If that wasn't bad enough, I would fill them in every day with a dark brown shadow, square off the front with an angled brush and forget about combing through to blend the colour, of course I didn't bother with that!

It wasn't until I started seeing models with thicker eyebrows and started watching Lisa Eldridge on Youtube that I started longing for thicker brows. The first struggle for me was to quit plucking. I hate seeing stray hairs and my first instinct is to grab the tweezers but you have to just leave them be - of course you can still get the hairs between your brows, no one likes an unobrow!

To help my eyebrows along in the re-growth department, I brought RapidLash and used that every night which helps the hairs come through quicker and thicker. If you have the money to spare, definitely invest in a tube of RapidLash - you wont regret it! Once I'd started to notice them thickening up, I decided to dye them. My eyebrows are naturally an ashy dark blonde so when I dyed them it meant I didn't need to fill them in as much as they matched my hair colour and it shows up all the little, fine hairs you might not of known you had!

Once you have a decent amount of growth it's time to go in with the tweezers. I was lucky enough to be sent the Anastasia Brow Kit so I used a stencil from there, but you can find stencils in Superdrug and Boots. I opted for the full brow stencil, filled in my eyebrows and then plucked any stray hairs. I also brought a little spooly brush and a small pair of scissors and carefully combed any longer hairs down and trimmed them, this helps create your natural eyebrow shape.

The final step is to fill them in, and remember - minimal product! I use an eyebrow pencil or an eyeshadow and once my eyebrows are lightly filled in - only where needed, I brush them through with a spooly to get rid of any excess product. I then set them with the MUA clear mascara.

If you want to go for the full on 'Model Brow' like the photograph above, all I did was fill them in lightly with a powder, then brush through them with Mac's 'Beguile' Eyebrow Gel. This adds a base colour and then a slightly darker shade which really adds dimension to the brows.

I hope this is helpful in some way!

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Anastasia Beauty Express Brow Kit

I'm sure most of you have heard of Anastasia Soare, the women behind most celebrities well groomed brows including, Jennifer Lopez, Heidi Klum and Reese Witherspoon. She's now branched out and created her own line of cosmetics, including the Anastasia of Beverley Hills Beauty Express For Brows and Eyes that I recently received to review. Inside the set there's a travel sized angled brush, five eyebrow stencils, two brow shades, a wax, a highlight, a contour shade and a how-to list of instructions. I received the kit for brunettes, so the two brow powders were a medium ash brown and a dark, neutral brown - similar to mac 'espresso'.On first impressions I was a bit dubious as to how the stencils would work, I assumed if you simply drew on an eyebrow it would look unnatural and fake. The five stencils are all different and vary from petite brows, high arches to thick, modelesque brows so there's a style for everyone. Simply pop out the plastic, position over your eyebrow and lightly feather on the brow powder, remove the stencil and join in any gaps. Following steps can include applying the wax, highlighting your brow bone, contouring the eye, using the highlight as an all over eyeshadow and the deeper brow shade as an eyeliner - the possibilities are endless.How I use it:Choose a stencil depending on the brow shape you'd like.Place over your eyebrow and feather on the lightest shade of brow powder.Remove the stencil and fill in any gaps.Brush eyebrows upwards to make them appear fuller.Apply highlight shade to entire lid and inner corner.Use the darkest shade with the angled brush to draw on a winged liner.
The two brow shades are well pigmented and creamy, which makes them easy to apply and achieve a strong brow with minimal product. The highlighter is a golden, champagne shade that has subtle shimmer in and looks very flattering on the skin and the angled brush is the perfect size and great quality. Personally, I don't bother with the wax as I think it's a bit too hard and difficult to pick up the product. Overall, I love the kit and how everything is so compact, everything I could need for my eyebrows and eyes are in one place. The only thing missing for me is a travel sized mascara wand to brush through your eyebrows to finish the look and some tweezers, but obviously - they'd bulk up the price.Moving on to the price, this kit will set you back $39.95, which is just about £25. What do you ladies think, worth the money? or too pricey?The finished result using the 'Full Arch' stencil.

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Perfect Brow Shade For Brunettes

I've been trying to find the perfect brow combination for years. I had it down a few months ago using an unbranded angled brush that was the perfect thickness and was firm enough to create the perfect shape but not create harsh lines. The perfect brush combined with a dark shade from an Avon quad gave me the perfect brow..

But, like all things good they break, become discontinued or get lost.
In this case, Avon discontinued the eyeshadow quad and replaced it with a terrible quality, barely pigmented replacement and a moment of anger from my youngest brother led to him cutting the hairs off my angled brush.

- Sigh -

As most people reading my blog have guessed I'm incredibly picky, even with my brow products.. I don't want my eyebrows to look too light or too dark, fake, I don't want them to smudge or take too much time plus I hate any products with red or orange undertones. A matte, flat brown with a nice brush is all I ask for.

A lengthy browse around led me to picking up a 266 brush and mac's espresso eyeshadow. The brush is nice but not thick enough for my liking. The eyeshadow however, is the perfect colour - pigmented, flat matte brown that makes my sparse albino brows into well shaped pieces of art.

So, if anyone is as picking as me, brunette and looking for a flat dark brown - here you are ladies, maybe this will shorten the search for you brunettes!

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