I’m a hairy girl. There’s no way to sugarcoat it or phrase it in a more positive way. For many girls of Southern European or Hispanic descent, it’s a fact of life that we have to accept (I’m Italian-American with a little Latina mixed in, so of course I have a lot of hair). Even growing up as a White girl in a predominantly White town, my thick brown hair, hairy arms, and bushy eyebrows made me stand out from a young age. So when thick eyebrows came into fashion a few years ago, I was understandably all for it. The brows I was born with were suddenly socially acceptable.
I still had one hurdle to get over, though. The fashionable thick brows that you see on red carpets are always precisely shaped and arched. I may have naturally thick brows; but I’m not Cara Delvigne. I’m not even sure if my brows naturally arch because the hairs grow every which way. Some of them just go straight up! I don’t have the need to “fill in” my brows like many other girls, but it was clear that I couldn’t just let my brows do their own thing. I needed a brow product designed not to fill in my brows, but make my already thick brows behave.
A salesperson at Ulta Beauty recommended to me Benefit 24-Hour Brow Setter, and so far it’s the only product that meets my unique brow-related needs. It’s a clear gloss applied with a brow brush that, when dry, holds your brow hairs in place. Essentially, it’s hairspray but for eyebrows. Since it’s colorless, the Brow Setter doesn’t make my brows appear any thicker or darker than they are, but allows me to create a nice arch. As the name implies, this stuff has great staying power. I can’t vouch for the 24-hour claim, but I apply the Brow Setter early in the morning and never need to reapply (and I frequently pull 10+ hour days). Even the brush included is an upgrade from a traditional brow brush. On one side it has longer bristles to apply the gel and push the brows so that they all go in the same direction, and on the other side shorter bristles for shaping. My brows aren’t perfect (they’re sisters, not twins, after all), but it’s safe to say that they’re more on fleek than ever before! At the very least, I no longer have to worry about my brow hairs sticking straight up or appearing as though I have a unibrow.
As a hairy girl, I’m used to feeling as though my hair is out of control. I have vivid memories of sitting on the rug feeling like my head was going to fall off as my mom attempted to untangle my waist-length hair (the yanking!). In middle school, I legitimately thought something was wrong with me because the other girls at school always had smooth legs while I couldn’t go a day without shaving before dark, thick hairs reared their ugly heads. I’ve tried various products over the years to get my hair under control–the Wet Brush, Nair, leave-in conditioner, bleach–and some of them have actually helped me immensely in managing the hair on my head, legs, and underarms. Never before has there been a product catered toward helping hairy girls work with the brows they were born with by getting them under control.
At $24 for a 0.23 ounce bottle, the Benefit 24-Hour Brow Setter is definitely an investment beauty product, but a worthwhile one if you have naturally thick, but misbehaving brows. The bottle is small, but it doesn’t take a ton of product to hold your brows in place. I usually only need to dip the brush into the product once for both brows. I have a feeling that hairy girls will be all over this Brow Setter.