Review: Sephora Collection Retractable Brow Pencil- Waterproof

As someone with brows that naturally light and unfortunately sparse, I find it's really important to fill them in, lest I look something like this:

Usually my hair is dyed jet black, and I'd fill in my eyebrows to match, using the following:

• Kat Von D's eyeshadow in Lucifer
• Kat Von D's angled eyebrow brush
• Anastasia clear brow wax

However, I've let my hair go a little lighter, and those black brows are now WAY too harsh. Enter Sephora's Retractable Brow Pencil.

COLOR: I bought this in 04 Midnight Brown, which is the darkest available. It's a little lighter than my dyed hair color, but not so light that it looks blonde.  I think it works a little better for my "lighter" looks, as I find myself adding some darker color to my brow when I'm doing something super bright or dark on my eye.

PACKAGING: As the title implies, this is a retractable pencil.  I have had no problems with the twist-up mechanism.  At the opposite end, there is a little brow comb, which I controls product distribution better than a mascara spoolie brush.  The overall pencil is a great size for my makeup bag-- not so tiny that it will get lost, but not so huge that it won't fit.  The downside to the smaller size is that it only contains 0.003oz of product.

Comb end 

"Pencil" end

PRODUCT: The product itself is slightly creamy, so it glides on really well without having to do 1000 strokes over the same area for something to show up.  It's also very skinny, so I can get super defined eyebrows without going overboard (which sometimes happened with the shadow + KvD brush).  I haven't done any waterproofing tests with it, but it has been lasting on my sweaty face during this stupid hot summer.

OVERALL: At a $12 pricetag, this is definitely a worthy buy.  I do wish it came in one shade darker for when my hair is darker, because I can't see myself going back to eyeshadow for my brows after this!

My sad, natural eyebrow.

Filled in!

HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO ANASTASIA'S BROW WIZ?

When I bought Sephora's retractable eyebrow pencil, it was in the running against Anastasia's very similar Brow Wiz product.  The differences in Brow Wiz are: it contains more product (0.08 oz), has a much drier formula, has a spoolie brush on the end, and costs $20.  I figure the price increase has something to do with the fact that it has more product, but the dry formula was the deal breaker.  Granted, I only did comparison swatches with testers, so there's a chance that Anastasia's tester had dried out from everyone using it.  Regardless, I didn't mind saving $8!

Don't take my word for it-- The Sephora Collection Retractable Brow Pencil- waterproof is available now!