Beautiful brows are in, and they’re here to stay. From pencils, to pomades, waxes, mascara, and everything in between – there’s certainly many ways to tame those slugs, but for me, I’ve personally found pomades to be the way forward. They offer excellent coverage, and buildable colour to sparse gaps, as well as all day (and night) staying power. Here, I’m comparing three pomades at various price points…
For each pomade I’m trying here, I’m using the Anastasia Beverly Hills Duo Brush #7B (£14, Cult Beauty) which I swear is the best brow brush I’ve ever used – highly recommended. I’ve cleaned the brush in between each product, and while applying I keep a tissue handy to pinch excess colour off, to control application. You can see from the above image what my real eyebrows look like (eek!). My natural hair colour is mousey brown, so to match up my cherry red hair, I apply a pomade when wearing a semi, to full face of make-up, otherwise I look a little odd. Because of the red tone in my hair I’ve opted for warmer browns.
I apply pomade by first lining the area I want to cover with the thinnest part of the angled brush. Starting from the lower inner-most part of my eyebrow I trace a sharp line up towards the arch, then do the same over the top, starting from the inner side, over the arch, before tracing above and below the tail, tapering out to a point, before filling in. I clean off the brush to then blend the colour out to avoid any harsh lines, and feather in the inner-most part of my brow.
Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade in Chocolate. 4g. £15 Cult Beauty. (£3.75 per gram)
This was actually the first pomade I ever tried, and (spoiler alert) it’s still my favourite today. It’s one of those products I always return to, and I have to say I’m yet to try a product from the Anastasia Beverly Hills range that I don’t like. Rich in consistency, it’s super easy to apply, with a creme-like formula which dries to a non-smudge, no-budge comfortable wear. What I love about this pomade is how easy it is to control, thanks to its silky smooth formula you don’t tend to get any dry bits flaking off. It’s the most expensive on my list, but these last (almost) forever! I usually have to chuck a pot after about a year as they do dry out a little, but £15 over a year I don’t think is bad at all. The shade chocolate is supposed to offer a more auburn tone, and matches up really nicely with my hair, being more cool-toned auburn than warm, so would suit most brunettes.
NYX Tame and Frame Tinted Brow Pomade in Espresso. 5g. £6 Cult Beauty. (£1.20 per gram)
I picked this up recently as I’m loving and growing my NYX collection, and was pleasently suprised by the shade, Espresso. It’s actually the most auburn tone out of the three I’m trying, and has a nice slick application, however I would say that out of all three, is a little harder to pack on colour over sparse areas. I don’t have very bushy brows so rely on my pomade to faux a few hairs in there. If you’re a little harrier then this would be perfectly fine for you. You can see from the image above that it’s a little trickier to keep lines buffed out, as it favours a harsher line, but at £1.20 per gram, it’s the cheapest of the three, and performs incredibly given the price point.
Freedom Eyebrow Pomade in Chocolate. 2.5g. £5 Superdrug. (£2.00 per gram)
The darkest of the three, I loved this pomade when I first picked it up from Superdrug, and was pretty excited about the potential saving in comparison to the ABH version which it’s clearly duped from, however it’s worth noting that despite the pot sizes looking exactly the same, you only get 2.5g in comparison to ABH’s 4g. The application with this formula is similar to ABH, and offers the same level of coverage for sparse hairs, which is great for adding brow where you may be lacking. It does dry out the fastest out of the three, meaning it’s near impossible to avoid little flaky bits of fall out after a few months of use, and you’re going to need to chuck it before you’ve used up less than half of the pot. However, at just £5 a pot, it would be my recommended product to those looking to try brow pomade for the first time who may not want to splash out an extra tenner.
Comparing all three, they all offered excellent wear time, and as I type this my hand swatches are still not budging from 24 hours, and after washing with soap and water (you’ll need a cleansing wipe or make-up remover). The Anastasia Beverly Hills has the best even wear, I could apply this in the morning, work all day, and it would require no touch-ups at all before going out all night, and would appear perfect when I got home, after a good 16+ hours on. Followed by the Freedom, then the NYX, which needed a little touch up after about 8 hours.
Have you been using one of these products, or an alternative you could recommend? I’d love to hear in the comments below! X