I'm the (self-appointed) queen of brow pencils and the new Glossier is up there with the greats
Welcome to my make-up bag, Glossier Boy Brow Arch
The new Glossier You perfumes may be the talk of the beauty sphere right now, but it’s not the only 2024 launch from the brand that’s worthy of your attention. A few months ago, Glossier dropped its Boy Brow Arch pencil and, for me, it’s up there with the greats.
Having launched in 2015, the iconic Boy Brow Gel-Pomade has been around for almost a decade, just a year after the brand itself was born. Four years later came Brow Flick, which steadily built positive reviews for the hair-like stroke effect, but never really hooked me; I’m a brow pencil girl through and through.
That’s why when the brand finally added one to its make-up portfolio, I was desperate to get my hands on it—and it’s been in my kit from pretty much the moment I did. Here’s why I deem Boy Brow Arch to be one of the best Glossier products.
There are no huge surprises with the packaging here; Glossier has gone for its classic monochrome design. White casing, black lettering. The pencil sits at one end, the spoolie at the other. The latter is the usual shape, not too flimsy, and does its job perfectly well. The pencil design, however, is a bit more unique. You have your classic twist-up mechanism, but the pencil's nib is where it's unique; it has a boxier shape, rather than being round, with an angled tip.
I will raise a fair bit of criticism here—after weeks of living in a make-up bag, the pencil’s outer coating has slowly been flaking off in tiny pieces, meaning the lettering is now patchy. Although this neither affects the pencil’s performance nor bothers me hugely, it is something that’ll irk those who like their products to look the part.
The formula is designed for long wear (up to 12 hours’ worth) and promises a quadruple threat against fade: water-, smudge-, transfer- and sweat-resistant. And, as with the original Boy Brow, Glossier gives you shade options with its eyebrow pencil, covering a broad range that includes lesser-seen grey and auburn.
The full list of shade options is as follows.
- Black
- Cool dark brown
- Warm dark brown
- Cool brown
- Warm brown
- Auburn
- Cool blond
- Warm blond
- Grey
The formula is described as a “pomade in a pencil”, however, it doesn’t yield that heavy pomade-y finish that might have put you off products like this in the past. It glides on easily and the spoolie helps to soften the look, for filled-in brows that don’t look obviously so.
Now, in terms of the long-wear claims, I should flag I have rather oily skin, which means I’m in a good place to test this kind of thing. My skin loves to repel product with oil and make it slide around all over the place, so I’m no stranger to brow pencil migrating. This stays in place really well without looking patchy through the day—which is why I’ve returned to it for daily wear in a non-testing capacity. £24 is fairly high as brow pencil price tags go, so I’m glad to see that it goes the distance in terms of wear.
All in all, this is now one of the products I’d happily name-check when asked which Glossier make-up buys I think are the best. It ticks my boxes in terms of ease of application, good looking results and wear time so, although there’s some room for improvement with the packaging, it’s hard to fault.
