Despite having banged on about their utmost importance
for years, I sometimes forget about brows. I think it’s
because I like them reasonably groomed but still natural-
istic — I am not a fan of the overprecise ones that look like
tattoos, or of the products and procedures that achieve this
effect. So, in rebellion against that particular aesthetic, I’ve
been using the first pot or pencil that comes to hand on
my own brows. Only the products I like best or am keen
to test make it to my bathroom so I know nothing is going to go disastrously wrong,
and I haven’t really loved a brow product since my second pot of Dipbrow Pomade by
Anastasia Beverly Hills (£19) finally ran out.
I had started to think that the substitutes were all much of a muchness, though obvi-
ously something in a jar offers more texture on the brow than darkest eyeshadow, which
I sometimes use too and which is, obviously, very flat. But then I tried Tom Ford Brow
Sculptor (£42; tomford.co.uk), and I realised that this just wasn’t true. Let me just reit-
erate my age-old spiel: brows make a face. A face with undefined brow just sort of peters
out. The eyes float about unanchored and unframed. A lot of people think that mascara
is the thing that makes the big difference, but it isn’t. Brows make all the difference.
They can completely change how you look. You don’t have to take my word for it, it is
easily demonstrated. Fill one in and leave the other bare: there you go. Now quickly fill
the other one in, for heaven’s sake.
Brow Sculptor is a dream brow product. It has a teeny-weeny angled nib, which means
that the application is extremely precise — this means that you’re unlikely to give your-
self caterpillars accidentally. The angled aspect lets you draw thin strokes with the nib
and wider ones using the pencil — it’s not really a pencil, more a wand — on its side.
The colour (I use Espresso) is subtle, by which I mean it’s not immediately going to look
like you’ve drawn yourself some brows in black Sharpie. Speaking of colour, I happen to
know that the palest shade, called Blonde, is wonderful if you are fair — sometimes fair
people use brow products that are and it can look quite jarring.
This is also a very good product if you’re brow-wary and just want to embellish what
you have discreetly rather than scribble yourself a new pair. You can ramp it up as
required from there. I like the texture too, which is dense enough to keep everything in
place and make the strokes look ultra-natural, and which glides on smoothly but does
not glide off. I like this pencil so much that I have banished all my other brow products
to the drawer of chaos, where make-up goes to die. It’s a real keeper. ■ @indiaknightIndia Knight
INDIA LOVES
READ I’ve recommended Abir Mukherjee’s Wyndham and Banerjee detective novels
before (if you’ve not read them, start at the beginning with A Rising Man). They are set
in Calcutta at the tail end of the Raj and are hugely evocative and enjoyable. I particu-
larly like Sam Wyndham’s slow and gradual awakening to the injustices visited by the
British on the Indians, portrayed with great subtlety and finesse by the author, espe-
cially in the fifth and newest instalment, The Shadows of Men, which is the best one yet.Brows really do frame a face – and this
product sculpts them to perfection
The colour is
subtle — it’s
not going to
look like you’ve
drawn yourself
some brows in
Victoria Adamson black Sharpie
The Sunday Times Style • 41