Naturalla Beauty

It's fair to say, aside from plucking the occasional stray hair, I hardly touched my eyebrows before about six months ago.  I didn't know what I was doing, plus I'm lucky enough to have pretty decently shaped brows naturally, so I just never felt the need.  That's gradually changed and while I still like a natural looking brow, I've discovered how much of a difference a little filling in can make.  I've experimented with a number of different products over the last few months and today I want to run you through the gamut of what I've tried...


THE PENCILS

Zuzu Luxe Cream Brow Pencil in Russet
The best part of Zuzu Luxe's Cream Brow Pencil is its consistency.  It's not so creamy that it slides around, but also not so firm that you feel like you're scratching your face to deposit any color.  It lasts all day and the spoolie on the back end also comes in handy.  Russet is a light taupe shade and a pretty good match, though I feel like it could be slightly ashier.  

Bare Minerals Frame & Define Brow Styler in Universal Light
This is the only retractable brow pencil I've found with good ingredients and I love it!  With a spoolie on one end, plus a small tip and no sharpening required, it's very quick to use and Universal Light is a surprisingly perfect color for me.  It's a soft taupe that looks the most natural out of everything I've tried.  A lot of the reviews on the Bare Minerals website mention the lead breaking easily, but I twist up just enough product so I can apply it, and I haven't had any problems.  

Beauty Without Cruelty Eye Defining Pencil in Soft Brown
This is a terrible eyeliner with a hard, waxy consistency, but it delivers enough color to work surprisingly well as an eyebrow pencil.  It has great staying power and I love how cool-toned of a brown it is, although it's a little too dark of a shade for me.  I passed this on to my mom, who has slightly darker hair and she seems to like it.

THE CREAMS, POWDERS & WAXES

Cheeky Cosmetics Brow Powder in Blonde and Light Brunette
These powders were my very first foray into filling in my eyebrows a couple years back and, to put it bluntly, it didn't go very well.  They're very pigmented, to the point where it's difficult to sheer the colors out enough to appear natural, and I find a loose powder challenging to work with in this capacity.  I also didn't find a color match.  Blonde is too light for me and Light Brunette has some odd, greenish undertones that didn't work either.  

Lily Lolo Eyebrow Duo in Medium
By far my favorite of the non-pencil options, Lily Lolo's Eyebrow Duo includes both a pressed powder and a wax.  The powder gives a very soft, buildable color and the wax is creamy, goes on clear, and does a good job holding stray hairs in place without feeling crunchy.    Medium is a mid-toned brown.  It's not overly warm, but I wouldn't complain if it was a little more ashy. (Are you sensing a pattern here?)

I also have the Lily Lolo Angled Brow Spoolie Brush*, which I've used in conjunction with the duo.  Because I don't have a lot to fill in, I wish the angled side was a little thinner for more precision, but it's still a very functional brush.  

Silk Naturals Brow Cream in Medium Brown
Silk Naturals' Brow Creams provide color and hold, plus offer some conditioning benefits for your brows.  The texture is that of a solid cream, almost like a lipstick, and once it's in your brows, the cream sets and does a good job keeping both the color and your brow hairs in place.  These are popular in the green beauty community and I can see why, as the cream is an easy product to work with and the color is nicely buildable.  I don't, however, love how it feels in my brows: heavy and a little stiff.  Medium Brown leans pretty warm, so I imagine Medium Ash, its cooler counterpart, might also have been a better color choice for me.    

The All Natural Face Vegan Eye Brow Wax
A clear wax, this has a much drier texture than the Lily Lolo wax and feels very comparable to an extra waxy lip balm.  It's a light hold product and while fine to hold a few stray hairs in place, I'm not sure it would do the trick for really wild, all over the map brows.  I also don't find the hold lasts all day, though it's easy enough to reapply, if you're so inclined.


The Bottom Line
I haven't filled in my eyebrows for very long, but I feel like I've tried a good number of products in a short time! On an everyday basis, my favorite is the Bare Minerals Frame & Define, as I find a pencil is the quickest and easiest method and the Bare Minerals is the most natural looking color I've found.  The Zuzu Luxe is a pretty close second and when I have a little more time, I also really like the way my brows look with the Lily Lolo duo.  The rest are products I would be unlikely to buy again, either for color reasons or just because I wasn't overly wowed.

What are your favorite eyebrow products?

In the process of weeding through and decluttering my makeup, I realized I've accumulated a fair few eyeliner pencils these last couple of years and - aside from a few brief mentions - I've never written about them.  I rarely used to wear eyeliner, but these days, it's pretty standard for days that I wear makeup.  Pencil is by far the quickest and easiest liner for me to use and it's what I reach for most often.  

Here's my opinions - good and bad - on the eight brands currently in my collection.  I've included some swatches at the end too, for anyone that might be interested in seeing how some of these colors stack up against one another.



The Top Picks

Pacifica Natural Eye Pencils
If I had to pick a number one favorite, this would be it.  The formula glides on effortlessly, both on the lid and in the waterline, and the three colors I've tried all have great color payoff.  Despite the marketing, I wouldn't consider these to be waterproof, but they do last all day on the lashline.  They also don't smear or bleed out of the waterline, although I usually only get 3-4 hours wear there before they start to fade.  Currently there are four neutral shades available, but I'm hoping for more fun colors in the future!  

Honeybee Gardens JobaColors Eye Liner
The JobaColor liners fall in the middle in terms of creamyness, but their gorgeous shades bump them up to my top two.  My two favorites are Blue Jeans, a bright teal blue and Smoking Gun, a beautiful silvered brown/shimmery taupe.  The one exception to the awesomeness of these pencils is Jet Set - the black - which I'm not crazy about.  I definitely think there are better black eyeliners, but I'd recommend the rest of the colors wholeheartedly. 

Middle of the Road

Benecos Natural Kajal Eyeliner
The formula on these is excellent.  They're creamy and apply very smoothly, but the actual colors - at least the two I have - tend to leave me feeling a bit let down.  Brown is a really warm brown with some almost orange tones, and Night Blue - which swatches as an amazing metallic navy - always ends up as more of a muddy grey/charcoal on my eyes.  There are a couple more colors I'm cautiously curious about, so I'll be sure to update this if/when I try more.

Earthlab Vegan Mineral Pencils
If you're looking for a liner that's easy to smudge out, Earthlab is a good choice.  I don't find Black to be the best true, deep black for lining the eyes, but it's excellent for smoking out as it still hangs onto a good amount of colour once blended.  

Gabriel Color
I only have one liner from Gabriel Color, in Black, which is another that I find to be more of a grey/charcoal than a true black.  The actual pencil is a little on the firmer side, but as long as you warm it up on your hand, it's fine to work with.  

Failed to Impress

ELF Mineral Eye Liner
As a retractable pencil sold for a mere $3, I was really excited to give the Mineral Eye Liners a try.  Unfortunately, the pencil is just way too hard and needs a lot of pressure to get any color payoff.  Metallic Purple was disappointing color-wise as well.  It's a plummy brown shade with a purple sheen, but the purple wears off super quickly, leaving you with just a rather ordinary brown.  

Beauty Without Cruelty Eye Defining Pencil*
I love how cool-toned Soft Brown is, but, again, the formula is just way too hard and leaves me feeling as though I'm scraping my eyelid raw whenever I use it. I will say, swatching this again today, the ashy tones and firmer texture reminded me more of a brow pencil than a liner, so if the color happens to be a match for you, it might work great for that purpose.

LUVU Beauty Eye Liner Pencils
The same qualities that I love so much about LUVU's lip pencils make their eye pencils some of my least favorites.  They're very solid and almost waxy, which results in very little color payoff on the eye, unless you're using a good amount of pressure.  I do like the shimmery White for highlighting the inner corner, but it's basically useless for lining the waterline or as a regular eyeliner.  

Blacks: (L to R) Luvu Beauty Black, Gabriel Color Black, Earthlab Black, Honeybee Gardens Jet Set, Pacifica Jet

Neutrals: (L to R) LUVU Beauty White, Pacifica Bare, Honeybee Gardens Brown Sugar, Benecos Brown, Honeybee Gardens Belgian Chocolate, Beauty Without Cruelty Soft Brown, Honeybee Gardens Smoking Gun

The Colors: (L to R) Honeybee Gardens Blue Jeans, Benecos Night Blue, ELF Metallic Purple

Have you used any of these?  What are your favorite eye liners?

I get so excited every time the pink Petit Vour box gets to my door.  This monthly subscription box showcases products that are not only vegan and cruelty free, but also predominantly natural.  The theme for August's box* is Beauty School and the box comes complete with products and tips to help you become your own beauty expert.  Here's what was included:


Beauty Without Cruelty Eyeliner in Soft Brown ($18.50)
I haven't tried anything from Beauty Without Cruelty, but I'm always happy to have another eyeliner.  The ingredients look good and are even free of palm oil, which is rarer than you might think.  The brown color is perfect for me too, since more times than not I go for brown eyeliner over black.  From swatching it on my hand, I'd say the pencil takes a couple swipes to warm up and then it does go on nice and creamy.

Harvey Prince Journey (Sample Value Unknown)
I'm really not a perfume girl, but I do appreciate that Harvey Prince's scents are mostly natural and are completely free of pthalates, parabens, sulfates, benzene, and other toxic chemicals commonly found in synthetic perfume.  Journey is described as exotic, awakening and transformative, and has notes of Indonesian clove bud, Australian sandalwood, Moroccan rose, French bergamot, Indian tuberose, Japanese orange flower, Lebanese cedarwood, Turkish cyclamen, and South African freesia.  

Rosemira Organics Sweet Coconut Body Butter (Sample Value ±$5)
I've heard good things about Rosemira and this body butter, made with unrefined, organic coconut oil and mango butter sounds lovely.  It's scented with sweet orange and vanilla essential oils, which, in combination with the coconut oil, give the butter a gorgeous, light, tropical scent.  Summer weather means it arrived to me somewhat melted, but I'm eager to give it a try once it has a chance to solidify again. 

Mi-Me Tangerine Lip Butter ($5)
Mi-Me isn't a brand I've heard of before, but the lip butter seems really nice.  Made with coconut oil, shea butter, mango butter, avocado butter, tucuma butter, murumuru butter, cupuacu butter, candelilla wax, vitamin E, and tangerine essential oil, it goes on smoothly and seems to just melt into your lips.  

Earthbody Brighten Cleanser & Mask (Sample Value ±$7)
For me, this was the most exciting product in the box.  Earthbody's line is rooted in the principles of Ayurveda and Brighten is a mix of rhassoul clay and thirteen plant and fruit extracts, including mangosteen, guava, papaya, pineapple and acai.  It's described as a superfruit enzyme powder and can be used as either a cleanser or a mask.



The Bottom Line
I've been happy with all the Petit Vour boxes I've received, but I've got to say, I think this month has been my favorite.  I'm most excited for the Earthbody cleanser & mask, but I'm also really happy to have the chance to try the Beauty Without Cruelty eyeliner, Mi-Me lip butter, and Rosemira body butter.  Personally, I won't make use of the perfume sample, but even without it, the value of the box exceeds the cost of a subscription.  August's total value weighs in at around $35.50.  

Petit Vour boxes retail for $15 (US) / $23 (Canada) / $30 (International) and individual products can also be bought in the Petit Vour shop.