Review - Etude House Color my Brows in Red Brown + The Face Shop Moisture Pore Balm


I thought I'd do a little review on a couple of items I'd been eye-ing off for a long time:  Etude House's Color My Brows and The Face Shop's Pore Balm.  I ordered both from an eBay seller: f2plus1, I'd ordered from this store a few times before and received items pretty quickly and everything was legit so I have no issue with going to them than direct to the brand.

 
Image courtesy of Etude House

First up, I ordered Color My Brows in #3 Red Brown and made the mistake of only using the reference images to purchase this.  I've been lacking a nice brow filler in a red brown shade so I was pretty amazed to see a Korean brand offer this shade.   When it arrived I was almost certain I'd been sent the wrong colour however both the packaging and tube say #3 on it.  Swatches on my hand showed it to have very little red to it.


For reference, here are my naked eyebrows!  My hair is dyed red but my natural hair is somewhere between a mousy brown and light ginger. this results in invisible eyebrows and lashes.  I was pretty sure that the Red Brown I received would not match my hair at all.


I've filled it in a bit thicker than I normally would but you can see a bit better here that it's still a very orange-brown and not as red as they make it appear in their promotions.  That said I didn't feel like it was terribly unsuited, just a little off from my hair colour.  In most lighting it's not noticeable, this is in natural light on a bright day, it's less noticeable in person with less harsh lighting.

Here's a comparison with a Brow powder I usually use (Illamasqua's Stark).  The lighting shifted slightly for this photo so you can see they're not *too* far off.  I do wish I had a bit of foresight to actually look at other peoples reviews on this product though, many were raving about it but all their swatches of the Red Brown did not live up to its name.  This would be more suited for ginger hair, the more "traditional" red hair, rather than dyed hair with any hint of auburn.  Here's the model shot I saw that prompted my purchase, whilst her hair is a little washed out, it's not ginger at all, it's more of an artificial red.

All in All, colour issues aside, it's a nice product, the spoolie is small which allows for precise application and the product sets the brows without leaving them rock hard like some other tinted brow gels do.  I would recommend this if your hair colour matches their existing shades.

 

Next up is The Face Shop's Face It Moisture Pore Balm.  I visited The Face Shop physical store recently and noticed they'd stepped up their makeup game a bit recently and tested out this Pore Balm which felt great and did a pretty good job at blurring the small creases on my hand.  I've been looking for an affordable replcacement for my Benefit Porefessional so I'm hoping this might be it.


First up is my skin in its pore-filled goodness.  Here you can get a good look at the visible pores on and around my nose and a close up of a targeted spot on my cheek just next to my nose.  Don't judge!  I wanted to use a gritty close up image to really try and get an accurate depiction of this product.


Here's my skin after using the Pore Balm.  For most part it did a pretty decent job at blurring the pores around my nose and lessened the appearance of those on my nose slightly.  In the close up, this is the same spot as above, you can see the product has actually filled some of the pores will little white spots so it lives up to its name of actually filling the pores in rather than settling above like many products do.  This resulted in very even foundation application (I'm wearing it in my above pictures).

I paid around $10-$11AUD for this product with free shipping, so if you don't mind the wait, it can be a budget friendly option and is definitely a good replacement if you're not willing to shell out for something like the Porefessional.  It does have somewhat of a deceptively small amount of product in it though, the tin itself holds a plastic tray with a spatula and sponge but if only used to fill in pores, this should last a while.  I was unable to find out the gram-age on the packaging or the sale listing so it's a tough thing to estimate.

In conclusion, I'd recommend both products but be wary of the color choices for Color My Brow and check out swatches on others rather than relying on Etude House's images.

2 comments:

  1. I like the brow color, Lauren. Somehow, in my eyes, it matches your hair color too hehe :)

    You're one of those who loves Asian brand when the world out there go gaga with popular brands :)

    I am a huge fan of Korean products, Lauren. Believe me when I say so haha, Most of my skincare stuffs are from Korea :)

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    1. Totally, I love Korean products! I visited one of the Etude House stores in Hong Kong and went crazy! Everything is so adorable and affordable, I just can't help it!

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