Confession: last night, I spent seven hours watching a Korean show called "My Love From Another Star". It tells the story of a 400-year old extra-terrestrial man and a haughty actress set in the present. The story is good, and it's pretty funny when it needs to be! Love the characters, the wardrobe, and the makeup. You've gotta watch it if you have about 21 hours of your life to kill! One episode is like 60 minutes!

I don't have a lot of extra time lately but y'all know what I'm going to do this weekend. Watch it here if you're interested. ;) Do let me know how you like it, especially if you've already seen it. Thanks for the heads up Bea!

Anyway, since Korean makeup heavily figures in my mind today I thought I'd show you The Face Shop Style My Eyebrow Pencil (~P200). Koreans love their brows slightly thicker but at the same time utra light - no harsh lines must be seen, and the shading must look completely natural. This TFS pencil does the job!

It has a soft texture which makes it easy to shade and blend on top of eyebrow hair. It looks super soft when properly blended! It's a bit more pigmented than I'd prefer in a brow pencil, but as long as you use a light hand you'll be fine.

The Estee Lauder Double Wear line is gold. It features the brand's longest-wearing products, which are a godsend in our humid tropical weather! I have the new pan concealer and it's quite reliable for all-day affairs. But that's a review for another day. Today I want to talk about the Estee Lauder Double Wear Stay-in-Place Brow Lift Duo (P1,000+), an excellent double-ended pencil for perfect, understated eyebrows.

If you liked my eyebrows in my recent looks, this is what I had on! At first I was unconvinced about the shades - the brown end looked very faint in the swatches while the champagne is almost invisible. But once they're on my brows all I can say is, much wow! This is my current fave brow product. <3 I am aware I have A LOT but I can't help it! I'm particular about my eyebrows and I get a high whenever I discover new products for them.

Have a look!

Left is Soft Brown, right is Highlight

Your nose - love it or hate it? I admit I've wished my nose was less round and large, but I've accepted it now. It's my nose. I have come to be affectionate towards it the way I would towards a ratty old pair of pajamas. I haven't really considered something drastic like rhinoplasty because, well, it doesn't honestly disturb me that much. I'm not the type of person whose positive image of herself can easily be ruined by something as minor as a wide nose.

But sometimes I just want to have more definition and height, y'know? Especially in photos where the flash or bright sunlight can wash out my features. I prefer to use a contour powder, but here's a handy trick I learned from YouTube: eyebrow pencils work pretty well too! I particularly like the Shiseido Natural Eyebrow Pencil in Deep Brown BR602 for nose contouring. It's the perfect matte brown shade, something that defines without looking weird and harsh!

You can use other brow pencils if you wish, but yes if you already have the Shiseido pencil then this is a great way to repurpose it. So, here's a quick tutorial on how you can use an eyebrow pencil like this to define your nose. It's super easy! 

Step 1: Map out your ideal contouring areas. Your goal is to make your nose look slimmer and higher. To do so, shade along the sides of your nose. Use the tip of your nose and beginning of your brows as the reference point. 

As you know one of my favorite eyebrow pencils is the Shu Uemura Hard Formula brow pencil. It is quite expensive, but it is AWESOME. Most people would think twice in spending for it (I know I did) but I find that it's totally worth the expense. Still, if you want something like it but don't have the cash to burn, I highly recommend the Majolica Majorca Brow Customize Sword Cut Pencil (P520 for the set)!

The shape of this auto-pencil is actually the same as Shu Uemura's Naginata sword cut. This shape makes it easier to get more precision when shading your eyebrows, although you do need to wear down the sharp sides first. The tip is just a little awkward in the beginning.

Due to celebrities and perhaps even makeup bloggers, eyebrow makeup is now on top of the Filipina's to-buy list. I've heard a lot of brand managers say that eyebrow products are some of their most-requested items! This is not the case five years ago, when most of us was clueless about eyebrow makeup. 

You gotta love the Internet.

This week, I thought I'd pay homage to a product that I just can't survive properly without. I'll be discussing some eyebrow favorites, and (if time permits) do a video tutorial showing you my current technique! Do read back on my old eyebrow posts - I've already shared some awesome tutorials and reviews there.

Right, let's get the ball rolling! I'll begin with a P90 eyebrow pencil that I'm sure y'all would love (or at least like a lot). The Hayan Brown Auto Eyebrow Pencil in Dark Brown is an automatic pencil that comes with a spoolie on the other end. I like the neat packaging, the fine non-scratchy spoolie, and shade. 

Why would anyone want to have strong, maybe even bushy-looking eyebrows? I think that would be your first question! In my opinion, full eyebrows look good on anyone at any age. It's not a handicap or just a trend, it really is flattering to have well-defined brows. Full eyebrows can make one look younger and the face, slightly smaller. They can even make your eyes look more expressive and alive!

It's not difficult to do, too. All you need is a dark eyebrow pencil that matches your hair and a spoolie or brush to blend the color in properly. You can opt to use a gel or pen brow filler but it's less hassle to do it with a pencil if you ask me. ;)

The best pencil for this purpose is the Shiseido Natural Eyebrow Pencil in Deep Brown BR602. It's a shade that's perfect for us dark-haired girls, since it's not terribly pigmented while providing the right amount of coverage. It comes with a natural hair brush on the other end, as well! It's what I'm using for this tutorial. 

Let's get cracking!

Step 1: Clean up your eyebrows. I highly recommend going to a brow salon if you're attempting this for the first time, but if you don't have the time nor the budget, you can at least do some basic cleaning.

Choosing the most flattering eyebrow makeup is much like choosing the best foundation for your skin tone. You need to find a color match, something near to the actual color of your hair. The truth is that nothing beats a good ol' brown eyebrow shade for us dark-haired beauties!

I picked up the Shiseido Natural Eyebrow Pencil in Deep Brown BR602 (P1,100) because of its lovely color. It's a dark brown, definitely, but it's soft and blends on my eyebrow hair perfectly. I have slightly reddish dyed hair right now but it still works since I'm on the dark end of the spectrum.

What I love about the product

• The texture of the pencil isn't as hard as Shu Uemura's (a Holy Grail pencil for me), a feature I like because it's quicker to shade my brows. It delivers a soft, barely there color that mixes with the oil of the hair to create a lovely natural finish.
• Flattering dark brown shade, perfect for brunettes!
• The lasting power is pretty good. I haven't noticed any fading after six hours of wear.

BYS (be your self) is an Australian drugstore brand that has been in the Philippines since late last year. If you've seen it in Watsons, then you know how dizzying their selection of colors and products is! I think that BYS has a lot to offer in terms of quality vis-à-vis the price. It's always nice to find a brand where most things are under a thousand bucks.

I will be reviewing a few BYS products in the next few weeks, and today I'm starting off with the BYS Brow & Eye Pencil in Blonde (P250). It's a soft, rather waxy automatic pencil liner that is actually an ashy brown.

I love the flat, slanted tip (remember the Shu Uemura naginata shape?) as it gets me a nicer arch in a shorter amount of time.

A lot of people have been asking me about my eyebrows lately - more than usual. Haha! To answer the questions, I've only been using two eyebrow products as of the moment: one from K-Palette and the other from Avon. Don't get me wrong though. Having perfect eyebrows isn't so much about what you use, but how well you groom them! So don't be lazy and pluck pluck pluck!

Okay, today I'm going to review the Avon Perfect Eyebrow Pencil in Dark Brown (P250). Long story short, it's a fantastic eyebrow pencil because it looks super natural without much work. Swear. Give it ten seconds and it already looks great!

What I love about the product

• The light, chestnut brown shade creates soft-looking eyebrows that look natural. 
• A few strokes is all it takes to cover gaps and create a sharp arch. Even if you use a heavy hand, it's hard to over-apply.

This is funny. I've had this product for a week and I keep on using it as an eyebrow pencil! I thought it was an eyebrow pencil, I mean, it looks like one. It has a nutty brown shade that looks perfect for brows...right? I only noticed right now that it doesn't say anything about eyebrows, which means its an eyeliner. Oops.

Whatever the case is, I do like using the Nichido Minerals Precise Eye Pencil (P138) for my eyebrows. It's the right color for the job, although it takes quite a bit of blending to achieve natural looking brows. Still, for P134, I can't complain!

I'll be reviewing it as an eyebrow pencil since I haven't used it as legitimate eyeliner, okay. :) Now, this pencil is quite soft, which means that it coats my hair as a brow wax would.

Now, I don't want you guys to go off thinking that Yves Rocher is exclusively a skincare brand. It does have a few nice makeup products, you know! I have an Yves Rocher Eyebrow Pencil as well as the Bronzer and Shimmer Powder Duo which I will talk about today.

The Yves Rocher Bronzer and Shimmer Powder Duo (P680) is a lovely combination of matte contouring powder and a shimmery, apricot bronze shade. You can use them separately - shimmer as highlight and the matte powder to shape your cheekbones - but you can also use them together as a bronzer.

I really like the texture and color payoff, although I do wish that it would stay on longer. As it is it's something you have to retouch if you will be out all day.

Do you know want to know the best way to sell something? It's simple. Sell something that's worth buying, something that's good and works beyond expectations and pricing. That's the reason I made an unplanned purchase of the Shu Uemura Hard Formula Brow Pencil in 09 Walnut Brown (P1,400) that afternoon at Shu Uemura in Rockwell.

I'm already super happy with my In2It Waterproof Eyebrow Color which I have been using for, oh I don't know, three years now so I really wasn't looking for a new brow product at that time. But after Patrick Alcober, Shu Uemura's MUA, demonstrated how my brows look like with the Hard Formula on, I was wowed! My brows looked like they came from a Preview magazine shoot! Lol. How can I leave the store without it?

What I love about the product 

• I can never go wrong with this pencil because it delivers soft color that looks extremely natural, no matter how heavy my hand is. The shade, Walnut Brown, lightens my eyebrows a bit (great if I'm going for that look) and matches my hair.