Benefit Cosmetics Brow Contour Pro 4-In-1 Defining & Highlighting Pencil Review

This amazing design reminds me of 4-in-1 pens that we were obsessed about back in school days, and still love. Whoever came up with this idea is a genius. But is it really convenient to use?

The Idea

The four-in-one Brow Contour Pro pencil was designed to define your eyebrows by contouring and highlighting. As understood from the name, each pen contains 4 colors – two for brow contouring ( Lighter Shade and Darker Shade ) and two for highlighting (Definer and Highlighter). If you think about it, these four shades are actually all you need to define your eyebrows and all is in just one product.

Having two different colors for brows really makes sense as naturally, you always get less density at the beginning of your brows and denser brows at the end. Cleaning around with concealer or applying Definer shade is also a must for more definition while highlighting under the arch with open up your look even more.

The best part is that this pencil is available in 5 different shades that cover a wide range of hair and skin tones, and since it’s automatic, it doesn’t require a sharpener. However, not everything is as perfect as it sounds.

How to apply

There is the How-to from Benefit Cosmetics:

Press down lighter shade tab and twist until you see product.
Fill in brow with LIGHTER SHADE from START to ARCH.
To switch shades, just press down tab of selected shade until it clicks in place & twist for product.
Next, fill in brow with DEEPER SHADE from ARCH to END.
Then, stroke DEFINER below brow from START to END and above brow from ARCH TO END. Blend gently.
Last, apply HIGHLIGHTER beneath your ARCH and blend outward.

First Impression

Before I tried it on myself, I’ve gone through reviews and realized that not everyone is happy with this product. Most of the people agree that it is nicely designed but for some, it doesn’t work as expected. For some, it’s too creamy, for others it’s too hard – two opinions that contradict each other making it hard to make a decision about this product.
With this in mind, I decided to give this one a test myself.

With the first several swipes, my initial concern was the thickness of the pencil’s tip. I’m a fan of Anastasia Beverly Hills brow products and after her Masterclass in Houston, I’m trying to do as tiny strokes of a pencil as possible in a place where I’m missing some hair to keep the eyebrows look full and natural. Because of the thickness of the Brow Contour Pro pencil tip, I couldn’t achieve similar result right away. However, after reapplying it, I’ve noticed that if I twist a product a little more and angle it a bit, I can definitely draw finer strokes, so my first concern is eliminated.

For me, the brow colors feel slightly more creamy than the highlighting colors. When I applied too much of a product the first time, it got a little messy. Here, it is very important to brush the eyebrows after each stroke to avoid fakely drawn brows. I used a disposable spoolie ( like these) while you can also additionally purchase a dual-end Brow Brush from ABH– it is one of my favorites as well! I like that I can fill small parts of my brows and still look natural.

All shades are matte, including the highlighter. I’m wearing Brown-Black Light and you can find the swatches on the photo below.

Since it can get really messy, add a bit of product as you go. The good part is when you’re done with contouring your brows, the Definer shade will cover the residues of a product that you may have. With these two highlighting shades, you also need to do the blending, but this time you can use your ring fingers for that.

The eyebrows look pretty nice after I finished contouring and blend the highlighting shades and overall, the product stays pretty well if left untouched.
I’m not sure if it is indeed waterproof, however, when I tried to smudge the swatches on my arm, they smudged. Nevertheless, the color stripes stains stayed even after trying to wash them off in a shower.

Packaging

As already mentioned, the pencil consists of different colors, and similar to the old-school pens, you can select each shade by clicking on a specific color and switch it by clicking on another. After selecting the shade, you need to twist the pencil in one direction as shown with arrows. It is one way only, so twist only the amount that you need as you can’t make the product go back.

Some people say that It’s made of cheap plastic. It is indeed made of lightweight plastic, but for me, it means it won’t take a lot of space and weight in my makeup bag which is important when you travel. Overall, the design matches all other brown products from Benefit’s current collection.

List of Ingredients

Synthetic Fluorphlogopite, Polyglyceryl-2 Triisostearate, Dimethicone, Polyethylene, Neopentyl Glycol Diethylhexanoate, Calcium Carbonate, Cera Microcristallina (Microcrystalline Wax), Copernicia Cerifera (Carnauba) Wax, Sorbitan Sesquiisostearate, Aluminum Hydroxide, Tocopherol, BHT.
May Contain (+/-):  Yellow 5/Yellow 5 Lake (Ci 19140), Blue 1 Lake (Ci 42090), Ultramarines (Ci 77007), Bismuth Oxychloride (Ci 77163), Chromium Oxide Greens (Ci 77288), Chromium Hydroxide Green (Ci 77289), Iron Oxides (Ci 77491, Ci 77492, Ci 77499), Ferric Ferrocyanide/Ferric Ammonium Ferrocyanide (Ci 77510), Manganese Violet (Ci 77742), Titanium Dioxide (Ci 77891).

The ingredients look pretty good to me except for few preservatives and colors that score around 3-4 ( moderate hazard) at EWG. However, their toxicity depends on the amount of the ingredient used, which is unknown to me.

Bottom Line

To sum up, it’s a very interesting product with smart design. You can pretty much get your full eyebrows done with just one pencil, which is good for travel. I really like the shade selection and the formula is fairly creamy making the product glide on well. However, you need to be careful and apply the product little by little to avoid thick chunks of color and mess on the skin around your brows. Blending is also important, but as per Anastasia Beverly Hills, you need to brush your eyebrows with any brow product.

As for the price, getting four products for $34 sounds like a good deal, because each of the similar products from really good brands will cost you around $16-$18 each.

I’d probably need to use it more often to master this pencil and to finish my brows faster. Nevertheless, for now, I’d give 4 stars out of 5 to this product wishing a finer tip for a faster application – probably as fine as bareMinerals One Fine Line Micro Eyeliner that I’ve discussed in the previous review.
The Brow Contour Pro 4-In-1 Defining & Highlighting Pencil is available at Benefit Cosmetics, Nordstrom, Sephora, and Ulta.

Have you tried this pencil? Let me know how you liked it if you did in the comments down below!