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The Anastasia Beverly Hills Micro-Stroking Detailing Brow Pen is claimed to be “a waterproof, superfine-tipped pen ideal for creating realistic hair-strokes that will give you your most natural-looking brows yet”. It contains 0.5 ml / 0.017 fl oz of product and it retails for $22.
These types of brow pens have been around for a little while now. The one I’m most familiar with is Mac’s Shape + Shade Brow Tint Pen which creates more transparent strokes than this one. I found that one really easy and pretty fool-proof to use but at times I felt the need to keep building up the color to get it to show up in photos.
I purchased this in the shade Medium Brown, which I’ve used before in ABH’s Brow Wiz. The color is a pretty close match to the Brow Wiz, maybe slightly more olive toned. The product is quite pigmented and goes on darker than I was expecting. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just not what I’m used to. I think it’s just something takes some practice to get the hang of.
You can draw fairly fine strokes with it but you do have to have a steady hand to do so. It is easy to apply too much pressure and end up with thicker lines than intended.
Though this is claimed to be waterproof, I don’t think that necessarily translates to being budge proof. Applied over any type of moisturizer, which many people wear, or even just slightly oily skin can cause the product to be prone to rubbing off. It’s not like a stain.
I use this to define the tail ends of my brows and draw in a few tiny strokes in areas where I have gaps in the hair. To me, filling in gaps with this pen will give the most natural looking result that would work well for “normal” everyday wear in real life. This is easier to do in areas with obvious gaps. In areas where I have a lot of hair, though, it’s better to use a brow powder to fill in the color. It’s very easy to lose control of the brush tip where there is too much hair in the way.
I like this enough to keep using it for now but I’m not sure I’d repurchase it after it runs out. I might go back to the Mac Shape + Shade in a darker shade. I found the more transparent formula of that one to be more forgiving if I didn’t do the best job with application.