Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Diorshow Brow Styler Ultra-Fine Precision Brow Pencil






I'm a firm believer that when it comes to filling and shaping eyebrows, pencils are not the best option. I use a short bristled angled brush with matte eye shadows in muted browns, taupe (Bobbi Brown has never failed me), or for evening drama- espresso. I highly recommend using a sealing liquid (like Paula Dorf Transformer) to avoid transferring the color to your hand or the shirt of your significant other (speaking from experience) and avoid black unless your hair is really that color and your skin is very very dark.

The only problem with the above is doing it on the go, in a hurry and sometimes the amount of extra space required  in your makeup bag. I don't even want to think about juggling my eyebrow products in the car. Which brings us to the next best thing, a really good eyebrow pencil with a built-in brush.

I was pretty skeptical when I received the Diorshow Brow Styler, because the retractable pencil is really ultra fine and I was worried it would draw a very visible line. Also, a one color fits all policy rarely works. But the Universal Brown is actually a dusty taupish brown that blends well with my coloring and filling the brows in quick short strokes and then using the brush for blending is quite effective without looking very obvious.

So the Diorshow Brow Styler worked quite nicely for me.

But.

This is touted as a universal product which I had a hunch was not the case. I needed someone with fair hair, skin and very light eyebrows to test this. Enter the long suffering husband. He has dishwater blond hair, pale skin with pink undertones and his eyebrows are very light and quite sparse. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect candidate. Now, the color of the Diorshow Brow Styler wasn't terrible on him, but it's definitely darker than his natural color and made him look frowny. My guess is that for people with this coloring, a slightly lighter shade of brown would be better.

The bigger issue, though, is the pencil itself. If you need to fill large gaps, a pencil is not the right tool. No matter how carefully you used it, it still looks drawn, and unless you're a drag queen it's never a good look. I did my best on the husband's brows, but I would not recommend it for anyone who require serious brow work. I didn't dare use the built-in brush on him, which brings us to the other problem with the Brow Styler. The brush is quite good, really, but it's a little too stiff, and with the husband's sensitive skin I thought it would be best to avoid raking his brows with it. I compared the Dior brush to an eyebrow tool from Elke von Freudenberg's line (review coming later this week), which is just a bit softer and feels better on my skin. I don't really have much of a problem using the Dior as long as I'm careful with the amount of pressure, but if you're prone to skin irritation, it might not be the best tool for you.

Bottom line 1: Works well for me, great on the go, but definitely not a universal eyebrow product.
Bottom line 2: My husband is a saint.

Diorshow Brow Styler Ultra-Fine Precision Brow Pencil ($28) is available from Sephora and most department store. I received it as a PR freebie.

Photos by me.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Gaia, I have and love this Dior brow styler, but am very brunette, like you. Experimenting on your long-suffering husband verified what I suspected: handy little product for "non blondes," but not really a universal color.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The poor Blond! I had to laugh at the vision of you trying out the make-up on his brows. He must love you dearly :-)

    I tried the Brow Styler when I was over at the Dior counter and it didn't work for me, either. My hair is silvery white around the face and gradually blends into an espresso brown towards the back. My brows are naturally black and I currently use BB's Charcoal shadow to fill in the few gaps. With all the silvery white framing my face, the Dior Brow Styler looked unnaturally warm and decidedly brown. The brow Styler is definitely a great pencil and brush, but the color is definitely not universal.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't see how so many companies can launch "universal shade" brow products unless they do no pre-testing on actual wearers. I imagine it's cheaper/easier to produce only one shade of a product, but wouldn't you think of the sheer number of people who'd pass on it because the color isn't quite right represents a lot of lost business? I am the daughter of a woman with no brows and have seen a LOT of these products get rejected at first sight in the store because they're too dark or too reddish.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't think my husband would let me experiment with make up on him - what a sport

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am a fan of brow pencils, they work for me, not for everyone, but I've found my little niche with them. However, the thing that worries me most about this pencil is the blunt end?! I work with my pencil by keeping it sharp and therefore drawing little hairs on. This is a definate no-no for me.

    ReplyDelete

I love comments and appreciate the time you take to connect with me, but please do not insert links to your blog or store. Those will be deleted. The comment feature is not intended to provide an advertising venue for your blog or your commercial site.

 
Related Posts Widget