Brow pomade

Brow pomade is brow colour at its most concentrated: pigment in a base of waxes and oils, often with ingredients that let it set, packed into a small pot and picked up on a stiff, angled brush. It goes on creamy, stays movable for a minute or so, and then dries to a matte film that most makers sell as water-resistant or waterproof. Because it is waxy, it also holds the hairs where it puts them.

That makes it strong, and easy to overdo. A powder is sheerer and softer; a pencil draws lines rather than filling areas; a tinted gel colours the hairs and leaves the skin alone; a clear wax or brow soap holds the hairs without colouring anything. Pomade colours skin and hair together and fixes both, which suits sparse brows that need shape and staying power at once, and oily skin on which powder slides.

The main difference between pomades is how fast they set. Quick-setting, waterproof formulas last longest and suit oily skin, heat and long days, but leave less time to blend. Creamier ones, including cream-to-powder formulas that dry to a softer finish, are easier to soften and more forgiving. Try a stroke on the back of your hand: if it can still be smudged after half a minute, you will have time to work with it on the brow.

Because pomade is so opaque, choose a shade lighter and cooler than you think, especially for the front of the brow; a warm brown that looks right in the pot can turn orange on the skin. Keep the lid screwed tight between uses, since a pomade that dries out drags on the brow and will not blend. If a pot comes without a brush, choose a small, firm, synthetic angled one; soft natural bristles soak up too much of the colour.

Use far less than you think. Dip only the tip of the angled brush, then wipe most of the colour off on the lid or the back of your hand. Brush the brows up with a spoolie, and start where the brow can take a crisper line: along the lower edge from below the arch to the tail. Then fill the gaps above it with short, hair-like strokes that follow the growth.

Come to the front last, with whatever is left on the brush, and flick upward rather than drawing a block. Before it sets, brush through with the spoolie to soften the strokes and lift the hairs. If the shape needs tidying, a little concealer on a flat brush along the edges will sharpen it, though a softer edge usually looks more like hair. For a lighter result, press a brow powder over a thin layer of pomade: the pomade holds and the powder softens.

A pomade sold as waterproof will not come off with water, and scrubbing at the brow drags on both the skin and the hairs. Soak a cotton pad in an oil-based cleanser or a two-phase eye-makeup remover, hold it on the brow for a few seconds to loosen the wax, then wipe in the direction the hairs grow. Clean the brush the same way: work a little cleansing oil into the bristles, then wash them with soap and warm water and leave the brush to dry flat. A brush put away caked with pomade stiffens, and a stiff brush draws blocks rather than hairs.

Wax, oil and a dark powder make an old recipe for colouring hair. In 1874 The Ugly-Girl Papers passed on a French formula for the hair of the head that is, in all but its use, a pomade: white wax melted into olive oil with powdered burnt cork stirred in, spread “like pomade” and described as “a black dressing rather than a dye”.^[1]

The brow’s version comes with a legend. Maybelline’s founder, Thomas Lyle Williams, is said to have watched his sister Mabel repair her singed brows with petroleum jelly, ash and coal dust, a story the historian James Bennett notes may not be true, since origin stories are notoriously unreliable. What is documented is Williams’s first product, Lash-Brow-Ine: a scented cream of petroleum jelly and oils with no colour in it at all, advertised from 1916 as nourishing lashes and brows, a claim Bennett says would now be considered untrue.^[2]

The pomade sold today has a founder’s account rather than a record. Anastasia Soare opened her Beverly Hills salon in 1997 and took up Instagram in 2012 at her daughter Claudia’s urging; by 2017 WWD named Dipbrow Pomade among the brand’s signature products.^[3] Soare has said that its formula grew out of experiments with aloe vera, eyeshadow and petroleum jelly, and that it was not waterproof when first sold;^[4] we have found no reliable date for its launch. In 2018 Money counted the brand’s 17 million Instagram followers and named Dipbrow among its most popular products.^[5] Opaque, matte and fixed in place, a pomaded brow photographs as a clean, filled shape, which suits a brow made to be looked at on a screen, and is also why it is so easily overdone.