I don’t know about you, but I’m yet to reach Glossier fatigue. Yes, the brand may launch a new Glossier product every few weeks, and this year alone it may have brought out newly formulated Supers serums, Milky Oil cleanser, Bubblewrap and an entire new brand (Glossier Play, for the uninitiated) but Emily Weiss and her team sure know what they’re doing.

More than just millennial pink packaging, every product is so meticulously deliberated and so carefully formulated, it does exactly what you want it to. But will my discerning beauty desk comrades and I like Glossier Brow Flick, the brand’s latest drop?

Firstly, the need to knows. Glossier Brow Flick is a brush-tip eyebrow pen that comes in three shades (black, brown and blonde) and unlike Boy Brow, which is designed to fluff up what you have, this new brow product is designed to give you more; “more definition, more colour, more brow in places you think you deserve more brow.”

We got our hands on the product a few days before launch, giving us plenty of time to put it to the test. Below, four members of the Stylist beauty team share our Glossier Brow Flick review.

My eyebrows are all fluff and no filler. They have a bit of basic structure and the kinda feral wily hairs I’m into, but they are so bloody sparse, l always fill them in. Usually I like a fine-nibbed, waxy crayon like the Anastasia Beverly Hills pencil everyone goes mad for or Max Factor Brow Shaper, and a sh*t tonne of clear brow gel (shout out to Blink Brow Bar’s new, insanely glossy one) but I’ve never, ever found an inky pen I’ve actually gotten on with. Could Glossier Brow Flick change that?

Granted, for a felt tip, it is rather sleek and dainty, more like the kind of pen you’d get from a posh stationers and less like the multi-pack, bright-coloured one’s from WHSmith, so I had high hopes. The idea is just to wistfully stroke the nib across the brow where you need a little extra oomph — for me that’s the measly tail end of my brows — and the semi-sheer ink forms realistic hair-like strokes. Just be sure to avoid the eyebrows when applying any oil or moisturiser or the ink won’t stick. I won’t make that mistake again.

My right eyebrow went on a treat, looking bountiful and fluffy, but like I could have grown it myself. My smugness was short lived, however. I couldn’t for the life of me achieve the same finish on my left brow. I’d like to put it down to something like the curvature of my face (!) or the extra stretch it requires for my right hand to reach my left brow (!!) but I should probably just admit I’m not that good at drawing on eyebrows. I need more practice with Brow Flick, but I will persist. Just please avoid looking at my left brow for a while…

I should start this with a disclaimer: I’ve never actually learnt to do my brows properly. Naturally, they’re quite full with a strong arch (and right now are in desperate need of threading) and all I do is use a pencil to fill in the more sparse front sections, then drag a spoolie outwards through to shape them and to stop them looking so blocky. That means I’ve never had the time, patience or skill to be able to draw individual hairs in, which is what Glossier Brow Flick is designed to do.

It took me a couple of attempts to get my brows to look half-decent, and even then I wasn’t happy with the finished look. I found it difficult to draw neat lines, couldn’t get my brows to look even remotely even and just generally spent way longer on them than was necessary. I don’t have anything against Glossier or this new launch, if you already do hair-like strokes using a felt tip-style pen then I’m sure you’ll love Brow Flick, but I’m not convinced it’s for me.

Every time I apply make-up, I always do my eyebrows first. They really do have the ability to completely change your face, and filling them in first lets me judge how to balance out the rest of my make-up. That being said, despite their importance, I don’t really spend too much time on my brows. My go-to method is lightly sketching through them with a pencil and then sweeping over the hairs with a brow gel to lock everything in place. So, eyebrow pens are unknown territory to me.

The first thing I noticed about Glossier’s Brow Flick was the small shade range; black, brown and blonde (what about redheads?). Even though my eyebrow hairs are very dark, I don’t fit neatly into any of these categories as I often rely on deep brown shades. I initially reached for the black but it was way too dark, even for me - so, I settled for brown.

When I started to fill in my brows, the formula felt slightly wet against my skin, which does feel a bit uncomfortable at first. As for the results, the long nib worked wonders on my arch and the ends of my brows – but I had difficulty creating natural-looking strokes at the front. I imagine this is something that comes down more to your eyebrow skills, rather than the pen itself, so I probably need to keep practicing. But if you have that nailed, this pen could be your new beauty staple.

My eyebrows were microbladed earlier this year, but some of the strokes have faded. The Brown shade matched the shade of my tattooed strokes so perfectly, I couldn’t actually believe it. I filled in the perimeter of my brows where most of the lines had gone, and when I stopped halfway and had a proper look, I was pretty amazed at how much fuller they looked while still appearing natural.

The pen brush itself felt a bit wet and flimsy, so it was hard to control the strokes – especially when it came to the inner sections of doom. A gentle brushing out with a spoolie helped correct any shaky-handed mistakes, and blended some of the harsher strokes into each other.

I used Glossier’s Clear Brow Gel afterwards to keep the hairs in place, and it didn’t disturb the strokes underneath – success! Overall, it’s a yes from me except for two drawbacks: the shades and the effort. The Brown shade worked well for the whole team, but the Black was way too dark and unforgiving, and the Blonde was barely detectable (not in a good way). Also, if I didn’t already have microbladed brows, my sparse natural arches would take 20 minutes at least (just adding a few strokes here and there took ten minutes) and would involve a lot of breath-holding and messed-up attempts.

Images: Glossier/Stylist