Monday, September 22, 2014

ALL ABOUT BROWS Series: Review on Etude House Drawing Eye Brow Pencil

Etude House Drawing Eye Brow Pencil
PHP 148 at Etude House Robinson's Place Manila
To end my first-ever blog series, "All About Brows", I would like to post a review on a brow product that I have been using for more than 2 years. This is hands down, my "holy grail" (HG) product for defining brows: the Etude House Drawing Eye Brow Pencil.



My previous brow product was Nichido Eye Pencil in Brown, and it was really reddish. It looked fake against my dark brown hair. At the time that I bought this, I was just looking for brow pencils that are 1) matte/powdery finish 2)has a brown color but with NO RED UNDERTONE. When looking for these 2 criteria, I was having a hard time looking into local brands, as a lot of them has a red undertone and a waxy finish.

Case in point: the swatch on the left is Pinkies Collections (a local brand) Eyebrow Pencil in Brown. Swatch on the right is the Etude House Drawing Eyebrow Pencil in shade 01. Note the reddish undertone on the Pinkies' versus the khaki-ish undertone of EH's.
I've always loved Etude House's products - BB creams, lip tints, face masks and nail polishes were my common purchases. So I swatched their brow pencils and voila, I found the one!

About the Product

No descriptions provided on the product packaging (well, it's just a pencil, no box included) nor at the official websites. What I can tell you is that this is a sword-type automatic pencil and that this product comes in 6 shades. The fact that it has 6 shades is a new discovery to me, as I've visited 3 different EH stores whenever I had to repurchase (SM Manila, SM North, and Robinson's Manila), and in those visits I never saw all 6 of them. At most the stores only offer 3.

This is a sword type of pencil

A closer look at the tip. One side of the double-edged sword tip is broad and it tapers to a fine tip on the opposite side.

How to Use


Since this is a sword type of pencil, it can be a bit intimidating to girls who are used to traditional pencils. But trust me, this is way easier and faster to use than the traditional ones! Now the "lead" of this pencil has two different edges to it: one makes a fat line while the other edge gives a thin line. The thinner edge is perfect for drawing fake hairs when filling in on sparse areas of the brow.

So here's how I use it (just check on the corresponding pictures above):

  1. Line the lower border of the brow.
  2. Line the upper border of the brow. Start the upper border opposite the inner margin of the pupil.
  3. With light strokes, fill in the brow. Start from the tail of the brow, then end up to the area opposite the inner margin of the pupil.
  4. Lightly shade the inner brow. Just use the pencil as you would use a Stabilo highlighter. ;)
  5. Brush the brow with the spoolie. I used a separate spoolie brush for this, but this pencil has a spoolie brush on the opposite end. How convenient is that?
  6. Optional: Clean up the edges by brushing concealer/bb cream on the skin surrounding the brow.
This is the fastest way that I do my brows, I must be done by 3 minutes when using this. Easy peasy.

Lasting Power

I have oily skin, but since I my brows are naturally full, I only appreciate fading on the areas where there's more skin than hair like the inner brow, and on the margins of the brow after 6 hours. My sister has really thin brow hairs and when using this alone the fading becomes patchy and more obvious, so she puts an eye primer on her brows before using the product. It worked well for her.

Since my sis and I use the same pencil, a pencil lasts us a month. So if you alone will use this, my guess is it will last for about 2 months. Etude House stores usually don't put it on display, but they actually sell refills of this! It costed me around 80 PHP before, but it is almost always out of stock. Better ask for it and save 70 bucks than not asking for it at all. ;)

What I Liked

  • The color and finish of this product is just what I was looking for. Matte and brown w/o red undertone.
  • The pencil "lead" is hard, not waxy. A harder pencil means more control for the part of the user, thus you can really make naturally defined brows with this one and just build the product up for more definition.
  • The sword-shaped "lead". I love how you can use the same pencil in three different ways (shade, thick lines, thin lines) without ever sharpening it. It also makes the application faster too!
  • Affordable. Majolica Majorca and Shu Uemura also offers the same sword-type of pencil, but I bet the Etude House version is the cheapest option. But it was more affordable way back: it was only 128 PHP back then. *sobs* 

What I Didn't Like

  • The so-so lasting power. This could last me for an entire school day, but I expect the inner brow to have almost faded completely. No problemo for me still, though.
  • The refills are almost always out of stock. C'mon Etude House, help save the Earth (and our wallets) by providing more stocks of the refills!
I've been repurchasing this for years so I highly, highly recommend this! Girls who have full brows will have no problems with this baby, but for those who have "Mona Lisa" brows like my sister, you can do what she does and apply primer before applying this. ;)

So that's it! I hope I was of help through this review!

Stay girly!

Kat




8 comments:

  1. Hi Kat, I've been really enjoying your eyebrows series. This is my favorite too. I have really thick, dense, and black eyebrows. I usually own two colors at a time, the light grey and the black (for ombre effect). The black is not very pigmented. Halos parang dark grey lang din sya. I use it on the tail tapos the light grey in the middle part. I can't with brown kasi sobrang black talaga nung eyebrow hairs ko. Ang mangyayari brown yung skin tapos may black hairs sticking out.

    PS. I read your intro post. Really happy you started blogging.

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    1. Thank you! I am glad that you're enjoying reading my posts. I haven't shared it on my FB page so I was really wondering how you stumbled upon my blog LOL. I'm still shy to post evidences of vanity pa. Hahaha.

      I own a gray pencil too! I use it when I want to leave my brows' color as it is (black din brow strands ko and they go really long and unruly at times) and just fill in the really sparse areas at the tail. Somehow I find it unnatural since it looked too flat. Maybe I should also get a black shade din para may depth. :)

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  2. Wow I've been using this for a long time and I didn't know they had refills. Awesome, awesome bit of info :)

    I tried this once and really liked it, but quickly grew out of the pencil. I find it too creamy and I don't like how pigmented it is. My current fave is the K Palette PENCIL (not the liquid-powder combo!). I have it in the shade gray or gray brown and I love it :) It blends better with my hair 'cause it doesn't have any red or blonde tone in it, but at the same time is not that severe scary black.

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    1. I only found about it when I was about to repurchase last school year. May katabi ako na nagtanong dun sa saleslady about the refill and when she said yes, I also bought one! Had I known na limited edition ang refills at magtataas sila ng presyo, I should have hoarded them. :))

      It is a bit darker nga no? These days I'm playing with brow powder since I prefer my brows to look softly defined (hope that was clear haha) but I still use this to draw fake hair.

      I didn't know that they K-Pallete had a pencil for brows! I checked out Beauty Bar recently and swatched the brow pens. Will definitely check them out when I go home this weekend. ;)

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  3. I am absolutely in love with this brow pencil! This is actually the only brow pencil that I use and I have gone through 4 of this already! Haha. My only qualm with it is it's soooo short. It actually only lasts about 2-3 months on me. But hey, for the price, that ain't so bad :) Also, I did not know that they have refills of this (thank you for that info)! I mean, how does it look? How does it work? How do you get it in the container? Hahaha tanga moment lang lol

    Loving your blog, btw <3

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    1. Thank you for following my blog, Victoria! I guess I can really share some girly things, indeed. Thanks for dropping by my page and keep posting comments too!

      The end with the "lead" can be screwed out of the rest of the pencil. You can check your pencil and you'll notice that there's a thin gap between the case that houses the lead and the rest of the pencil - that is where the two parts separate. (Hope I described it clear enough hahaha)

      A refill looks exactly like that 1/3 of the pencil that houses the "lead", and you just screw it into the other 2/3 of the pencil that has the spoolie and voila! Another month (or two..or three) of defined brows! When I purchased it it came with a carton packaging - you will not see this on display, so you'll have to ask. ;)

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  4. I also have "Mona Lisa" brows and i've been reading review about the EH drawing eyebrow and im confuse what shade to use can u post a photo of ur sister with the 01 pencil

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Post your girly findings below! I love receiving comments! :D