REVIEWSDAY: L'Oréal Superliner Brow Artist

On Sunday night, I went to a wedding reception. It was lovely, and beautiful, and I totally did not tear up at the first dance; shut your face. There may have been a tad too much gin.

The sad consequence of this lovely evening was that on Monday I woke up 20 minutes late and had to fling what I needed into my handbag and do most of my makeup on the train. All would have been well (I am pretty practised at hungover train makeup, because I am a mess), except I forgot to bring any eyebrow products and, being that my eyebrows are a bit of a law unto themselves at the moment, I had to make an emergency trip to Boots. Yes. Emergency.

Enter: L'Oréal Superliner Brow Artist.

The reason I chose this product was because it looked like it had everything I needed in one: brow pencil on one end, wax pencil on the other, little brush on the lid. Sorted. Handbag-friendly product, purse-friendly price (£5.49 in Boots), Noll-friendly colour (I got it in Dark Brown, based on an incredibly hurried back-of-hand scribble).

I’d never used a wax pencil before (tinted wax with a brush or gel have always been my shaping tools of choice) so I was a little bit unsure about how that would go, but actually it was the brow pencil that tripped me up first. The colour was, visually, a great match for me. The pencil itself, though, is very, very soft and highly pigmented – more of an eyeliner than a brow pencil, for me. This meant that, even doing little tiny strokes, it came out very thick and dark and all a bit Frida Kahlo. The next time I used it I tried a much lighter touch, but it still came out very dramatic, not really a day-to-day look at all. I do think, though, that this would definitely be less of a problem with the lighter colours, and were I to repurchase I’d definitely go for the mid-shade, Brunette.

To lessen the drama of the pencil, I then went through my brows with the brush – I really do think that it’s a great addition to the product. I think I will use this again, but as something that lives in my handbag for emergencies rather than something I reach for every day, and that’s because of the lovely little brush. It did an OK job of blending out the excess colour from the pencil, but really it’s just great for shaping – the bristles are firm and not too long, so it’s easy to get everything where you want it.

I found the wax pencil a bit confusing. It might just be me – remember, the first time I used this, I was probably sweating gin and tonic – but it didn’t feel soft enough to be very effective. To get enough of the product off I had to press quite hard, which smudged the (already a bit questionable) brow pencil and ruined all my hard work shaping. The second time I used it, I ran the brush over the tip of the pencil to get the wax on it and then used that to shape, which was much more effective.

I really wasn’t blown away by Brow Artist. The quality of the pencil itself was a definite let-down, although again that might be less of a problem with the lighter shades. You can’t fault the product as a whole for convenience, though, so as long as you can get a good colour match, this would probably come in useful for travel or, like me, eyebrow emergencies. They’re a thing, I swear.