brow down.
Constructing brows where there are none is not an easy task. Remember around 1994 when Drew Barrymore had that manic-pixie-dreamgirl thing down and was sporting a close cropped peroxide dye job and non-existent eyebrows? Anorexic arches were a sign of the times before the new millennium, from pouty pinup Pam Anderson to rock goddesses like Gwen Stefani. As a brunette with rampant coarse hair, you’d think I could grow a pair but, much like Pauly Shore, my eyebrows never recovered from nineties.
I’ve been pretty fed up with using pigment powders and a brush to build up my brows for a long while now, though it’s a much more elegant solution than filling them in with liner or mascara and running the risk of looking like Miss Havisham. I wanted an eyebrow routine that was easier but didn’t look it.
Much like Pauly Shore, my eyebrows never recovered from nineties.
I have to thank all of my drag queen friends for teaching me that Sharpie markers can double as make-up, which inspired the weird series of searches I took on to find this product. As a make-up enthusiast and optimist, I often literally search ideas I have and hope that a cosmetic counterpart exists. Skin Food’s Seaweed Eyebrow Tint seemed to fulfill exactly what I’d been trying to conjure: “A brush pen-type eyebrow enhancer” the Skin Food website reads, “that creates long-lasting sharp eyebrows. Shape and define brow, filling in between eyebrow hairs.”
Investing in make-up from abroad is risky business because it’s tough to tell what I’ll actually end up with thanks to the language barrier. Is it actually seaweed? Who knows? Is Skin Food legitimately nourishing to my epidermis? Hard to tell. But I’ve been lucky so far and am still really enjoying the Holika Holika BB Cream from Korea that I last took a chance on. Hoping for the best but expecting the worst, I ordered my brow pen from eBay for less than ten bucks.
Skin Food’s Eyebrow Tint is exactly what I wanted it to be. It’s precise and glides on easily, but (unlike Sharpies) it is subtle. It takes a few passes of the fine brush to see where the hair-like strokes are filling in. I can sometimes be heavy-handed but the Eyebrow Tint fills in my more sparse segments of brow without ever looking drawn on. I’m a little nervous about the longevity of the product– how long until it dries out? But with price tag that feels like a nineties throwback, this Eyebrow Tint can help keep me from looking like one. —Casandra Armour
