Brow Product Showdown: Glossier Vs. Essence

A new friend from my Skimm’bassador group recently asked me if I had a blog about eyebrow gels and I realized that I did not. But it’s a great idea, since brow gel is an essential part of my makeup routine.

So you have a little background about me and my brow situation, I have pretty decent brows. I’m not someone that has to spend a lot of time drawing on my brows because I have a shitload of them. The problem is that they are blonde, so they blend in with my face. The other problem is that they never stop growing, but that’s another story. Maybe I’ll share that at the end of the blog.

For many years, whenever I saw a magazine article or ad for eyebrow products, I’d be a bit smug and be like, “*I* don’t need that, I have great brows.” That was a lie. Because even though I have pretty thick but blonde brows, there are many years of photographic evidence that proves I actually DO need to do something with them, as it appeared I had no brows at all.

The best solution I have found for my brows is a tinted brow gel. There are a few on the market that I really like, so I thought I would tell you a bit about each of them.

My favorite eyebrow product is the Glossier Boy Brow. The annoying thing is that you can only buy it on the Glossier website. It’s $16 which I think is really reasonable for something I use every day. Even though I am platinum blonde, I use the shade Brown. The other shades Glossier offers are Blonde, Black and Clear. I really like Brown because it’s more of a cool-toned brown, so it doesn’t make my eyebrows look too warm or red.

I really like this product because the brush is really small but still holds a lot of product. You have to be a little careful when you remove it from the tube and you might need to wipe off just a bit of the product, as the brush does hold a lot, as I mentioned. But I like that because I only need a few coats. It literally just takes a couple seconds to coat my brows and kind of move them where I want them to be and then I’m done. Occasionally, I will have a sparser section, and I might grab an eyebrow pencil to draw on a few strokes.

A YouTuber I watch named Nicole Renee Cutler mentioned that she really loves the Essence Make Me Brow Eyebrow Mascara, and she said it was a dupe for the Benefit Gimme Brow (more on that below) and it’s only $2.99. That’s right. It’s $3. I thought $16 was a great price but you could literally buy 5 of the Essence Make Me Brow for that! I got the color in Soft Browny Brows, and I honestly think I should have gotten the darkest shade, Browny Brown. I thought that I would like it because Glossier doesn’t have an in-between color like that, but I honestly think it’s too light. The other color they offer is Blondy Brows.

I’m not sure I like this as much because not as much product comes out on the brush, so I don’t think it does as much as I want it to. And because the color is too light, it’s kind of hard to see. I would think this brow gel would be the Blondy shade since it’s so light. I think I should try this again in the darker color to see if I like that any more before getting more of the Boy Brow, especially because the price is so good.

Here is a pic of me wearing the Boy Brow on the left and the Essence Make Me Brow on the right.

As for the Benefit Gimme Brow+, I don’t personally own this right now, but I have used it in the past. It actually used to just be called Gimme Brow but Benefit voluntarily recalled all Gimme Brows recently and will re-release it on April 6 at Sephora (and other locations) under the name Gimme Brow+. According to a statement from Benefit, they decided to recall the product when they found that “recent batches of the product did not meet [their] stringent quality standards.” The product was always safe for your eyebrows, but if you were an idiot and decided to put it inside your eyeballs, it could lead to eye irritation. In my mind, stupid people were using it as mascara and there might have been an issue, but that is all conjecture on my part. (Click here if you are curious to read more about the recall.)

Gimme Brow+ retails for $24, which obviously makes it the most expensive of the three. (You could buy EIGHT of the Essence Make Me Brow!) However, it might be the best one in terms of application – The brush picks up the perfect amount of product, so you don’t have to wipe any off. But I do think I prefer the color of the Glossier Boy Brow.

The Gimme Brow+ comes in 01 Light – Platinum to Light Brown, 03 Medium – Light to Medium Brown, Redheads and 05 Deep – Dark Brown to Black. I used the shade 03 Medium, and liked it OK. It wasn’t TOO warm, but it’s not perfect for my preferences.

I think the Glossier Boy Brow and the Gimme Brow+ are the most comparable, but at the end of the day, Glossier is cheaper so I tend to go with that. However, if I’m out and I want to get a brow gel in a hurry, I do like that I could just run into Sephora or Ulta and pick up the Gimme Brow+.

As for clear brow gel, I don’t use it every day but when I use it, I use the Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Gel ($22). Sometimes my brows get a little unruly, so this helps to hold them into place.

So those are my thoughts on a few different brow gel products! I hope this helps if you are in the market for something similar!

xo,
Lauren