MAC Veluxe Brow Collection : Fluidline in Dirty Blonde

If there's one product, besides lipstick, I can never buy too much of — it would be eyebrow products.
Before being the makeup junkie that I am now, I used to overlook my eyebrows. I concentrated on all the other parts of my face except for the one that's the most important in giving it definition. I browsed through blogs and discovered Browhaus, whose expertise opened me to a whole other level of appreciation for eyebrows. They threaded, dyed and shaped my brows to a shape only I thought celebrities could have. After this wonderful discovery, I went on a hunt to find the best brow friends I could find...

I had a penchant for eyebrow pencils at first. They're easy to use and handy to carry around in your purse (just in case you want to retouch!). I scoured the stores (Beauty Bar, PCX, Rustan's Essenses, SM Watsons, Landmark) for the best brow pencils. At first I had a hard time finding the right color, given most pencils being offered are way too dark and just ended up making me look like a kontrabida in a teleserye. But after a while, I found my bestfriend in MAC's Lingering retractable eyebrow pen.

For reference, these are my untamed, unruly and sparse brows that seem to have no shape at all. I haven't had it professionally tamed for some months either, just a couple of self-plucking moments here and there when I have the time.

MAC Fluidline Brow Gel Creme is a long-wearing waterproof gel that I find perfectly creamy, well-pigmented and smooth. It's my first time to use a gel product (recently only bought a Bobbi Brown gel eyeliner as well) and I must say I'm impressed with the consistency. It glides on very smoothly without dragging. As I mentioned, it is quite pigmented so it's easy to overdo.

For those who are newbies in eyebrow shaping, it can be a bit messy and tricky to apply. The technique is to get some of the product, put it on the back of the hand and from there, little by little apply to the brows. It's best used with a stiff, angled brow brush. MAC 208 is the brush promoted with this collection and I believe it's the perfect tool to use with it, which is why I didn't hesitate to purchase it as well.

With my current hair color, the shade matched to me was Dirty Blonde. It is described as a soft taupe brown with slightly cool undertones. The two other shades are: Redhead, muted golden brown, which is lighter and warmer than Dirty Blonde and Deep Dark Brunette, rich brunette, which is a dark brown color with warm undertones as well. I couldn't get the color to show perfectly on my swatch (which I promise I tried my best to) but it's not as dark as that. 

What I love the most is it lasted 8 hours one me without budging. The SA who applied it on me said that makeup artists love this as it provides high definition results great for professional use. That is why I won't recommend this gel creme for eyebrow newbies (those who have never experimented with their eyebrows yet) because you need to exert much more effort than the good ol' pencil (plus you need to have a really good eyebrow brush to apply this with). I've been playing with my eyebrows for quite some time and still found this kind of difficult to perfect. Once you do however, the results will be unparalleled. 

This is the result of my first foray into the eyebrow gel creme universe and I must say, I'm not looking back. I still carry around my eyebrow pencil for quick touch-ups or for when I'm on-the-go and can't be bothered to carefully craft these 'HD' brows. One of my goals though is to perfect the technique in applying this so I can apply it quickly and even with my eyes closed.

In summary, I LOVE this so much I want to hoard on it as it is limited edition and isn't part of the permanent collection. So to all eyebrow fanatics, rush to your nearest MAC counters now and try this on for yourselves to see what I mean!