I HAVE a love-hate relationship with brow gels.
Finding the right amount of control without brows feeling crunchy is near-impossible, so I often go without.
To find my match, I tried out three . . .
BUDGET
Essence Brow Lift & Freeze Glue 01 Clear Control, £3.99 for 7ml, boots.com
This has a wax consistency, rather than gel, so never truly sets.
That helps avoid the crispy feeling, although it makes getting hairs into place slightly trickier.
Despite promising 18 hours of hold, I notice my browns beginning to revert to their natural structure within around eight hours – or a typical office day – and it wouldn’t weather a workout.
For the price, it does a pretty decent job, and isn’t the worst that I’ve tried, by far, but it doesn’t quite tick all of the boxes.
MID-RANGE
Morphe Micro Manager Gripping brow gel, £12 for 4.4g, from cultbeauty.co.uk
The shape of this brush is my favourite.
It’s slimline, so you can be precise about which hairs you’re moving where, and it doesn’t pick up too much product and overload brows.
That being said, the white formula dries very quickly, so it can flake off and look like dandruff in my brows – which is less than ideal, although I’m sure this is exacerbated by my heavy- coverage foundation mixing with the formula.
If you are someone who doesn’t wear much base make-up, you won’t have the same issue, so this could be the perfect match for you.
LUXURY
Modern brow gel, £23, 8g, vievebeauty.com
I sometimes feel like Jamie Genevieve, the make-up artist and Vieve founder, can read my mind. Her products seem perfect for me.
From the product description of this brow gel, which launched this week, I had high hopes.
But the tube is bigger than I expected, so a lot for your money.
The brush is still fine, though, and the same width throughout, which helps ensure the gel is applied to each hair evenly.
The flexible formula sets hairs in place all day without feeling like a mask on the skin, and it doesn’t flake. Brilliant.
PICK OF THE WEEK
IF you’ve got dry, brittle hair, I’ve got great news.
Olaplex has updated the formulation of its original bond-repair treatment to work five times faster, and deliver smoother, softer hair from the first wash.
Olaplex No.3 PLUS Complete Repair Treatment, 100ml, £32, takes three minutes to transform dull, damaged hair, by building bonds at a deeper level than the original, and conditioning lengths for shine.
