Skinny, Bold, and Everything in Between — These Pencils Get Your Brows on Point

Whether thin, fluffy, bold, or natural, eyebrows will always be top of mind (ha!) for any beauty fanatic. They do more than just frame your face — they also inadvertently set the vibe of the rest of your look. Filled-in, highly defined arches most definitely convey fleeky, night-out glam, while full, fluffy brows usually carry a more natural everyday feel. And as for the renaissance of the now-trending skinny brow… ah, we’ll let you brave young’uns enjoy that trip for us, as we’ve still barely recovered from the first time!

Regardless of your chosen eyebrow look, getting there is the responsibility of the most quintessential of products: the eyebrow pencil. Now, we’ve definitely made the rounds with the myriad of formulas out there — gels, waxes, liquids, tints, even soap — but there’s something about a tried-and-true, easy-to-use pencil format that just ticks the boxes of both beginners and experts alike.

The Best Eyebrow Pencils

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What to Consider

Choosing a makeup formulation can be highly intuitive, and shopping for eyebrow pencils is no exception. However, there are some fundamentals that can make your purchase foolproof:

• Formula: Most brow pencils typically consist of a wax base, together with oils, pigments, and glycerides. Vegan pencils do away with beeswax in their formulations, and many clean brow pencils are also paraben-, fragrance-, and talc-free. And since the FDA requires an ingredient declaration on all eye cosmetics, you can easily eyeball the ingredients of your pencil in question.

• Expert-Vetted: Eye cosmetics are usually physician-tested, brow pencils included. Products that claim to be dermatologist- or ophthalmologist-tested indicate that they’re safe for use, especially if you wear contact lenses or have sensitive skin.

• Format: Eyebrow pencils are usually either sharpenable or retractable/mechanical. Like your everyday school pencil, sharpenable brow pencils are great for precision strokes and depositing pigment, as you can really make the point as sharp — or as dull — as you like. Retractable pencils can come either in a micro-tip or a slanted or diamond-shaped tip, and as such, are ideal for shaping and filling in sparse brows without having to be sharpened. They also usually offer less drag than a traditional pencil.

• Skin and Hair Color: Brows are a very personal part of your face, and luckily, you already have the best palette to work with: your own coloring. A good rule of thumb is to always go two shades lighter than your hair color; a brow pencil that comes in a wider shade range will definitely give you more options.

The best eyebrow pencils will give you the arches you want, via a safe, pigmented, easy-to-apply formula, and ideally at a price point that won’t make you balk. We’ve rounded up the best in class that hit all those categories, plus threw in a few bespoke picks for travel or multitasking — because we’re just beauty addicts that way.