Benefit Browzings

I’ve always been simultaneously fascinated and dismissive of Benefit. Ok dismissive is too strong a word, disappointed more like. On the one hand I think most of their products look amazing and I have frequently walked into a shop with the intention of leaving with some whimsically packaged loveliness. The thing that’s always stopped me is the price. Take for example the blushes. At £23.50 each they aren’t cheap. Even though I know you get 12grams of product the teeny little boxes just make my tight arse Lancastrian heritage come to the fore. “I could buy a NARS blush for less than that!” I can hear my Mother saying. Yes you get less but... but... I have no doubt that when my budget problems ease up I will be treating myself to some of the products I’ve been craving for the last four years of student induced poverty. One product I’ve been eyeing up more than any other is the Browzings DIY brow kit.



So here it is. The £22.50 kit contains brow wax, powder, applicators, tweezers and step by step instructions to perfect Hollywood brows. The packaging is functional with a good sized mirror, I also like the sleek black casing. You can choose from light, medium or dark (which I have here). The instructions are pretty simple as you can see. (Sorry about the blur. They looked clear on my camera... of course I wasn’t wearing my glasses so I could have been looking at a picture of my cat for all I know...)



Ignore the colour of the product in the pan. For some reason it’s been totally washed out, it isn’t grey in real life! The swatches are true to life (powder on top, wax underneath).

I must say I surprised myself with this. I have naturally thick dark brows so I was mainly interested in this product for the wax. I just want to stop looking like I’ve modelled my brows on Stig of the Dump with hair pointing in all directions. I’ve tried cheaper options like clear mascara or even a spritz of hairspray on a brow comb but the finish always looks plastic and artificial. I gave the powder a go too anyway and I was actually impressed! When I’ve played with filling my brows in before it’s looked terrible and overdone, not so with this. The colour is a dead on match and doesn’t have any of the ashy quality to it than can make otherwise normal brows look grey in certain lights. The wax is pleasantly soft and tames brows without leaving them crispy. The brushes are a bit small and fiddly but perfectly functional. Here are some obligatory before and after pictures. Please forgive me the state of my brows. They are due a wax and I’m not the best at maintaining them.



The only bit I didn’t like was the tweezers. For starters I don’t tweeze on the go. I firmly believe you should only be allowed tweezers near your brows if you fit the following criteria;

• Sober (very VERY important)
• Somewhere quiet so you won’t get a fright and gouge your eye out
• Somewhere with a stable surface you can rest your elbow on to aid a steady aim. Trains and buses etc do not qualify

Even if I were brave enough to tweeze on the go these tweezers really aren’t that great. The short length means it’s difficult to squeeze them. I prefer my normal Tweezermans.

All in all I’m pleasantly surprised with how much I like this product. I do think I will get enough use out of it to justify the high price tag. In fact I strongly suspect when I run out I will be repurchasing as I have never found such a good colour match.

So what do you think, are Benefit products worth the pennies or is it too much cash for gimmicky packaging. Let me know!