Urban Decay vs. Revolution Pro: Microfine Eyebrow Pencils

For the past few months I have been using Urban Decay’s Brow Beater in my daily makeup routine. It’s a microfine, retractable eyebrow pencil which also comes with a spoolie brush on the other end for taming and shaping brow hairs. I paid £16 for the pencil in House of Fraser, which seems to be the standard price everywhere.

Last week my Brow Beater ran out unexpectedly (I go through eyebrow pencils quickly...) I don’t live close enough to any stores that sell Urban Decay to just nip out and buy one, and I couldn’t wait days for one to be delivered, so as a short-term fix I headed into my local Superdrug to see what they had on offer. I was having a peek at the recently rebranded Revolution Pro bay when I spotted something quite familiar looking: Revolution Pro make their own microfine eyebrow pencil, also complete with a spoolie brush at the opposite end. I’ve been a big fan of Revolution Pro’s eyeshadow palettes, so for £4 I was keen to check out their Microblading Precision brow pencil.

Here’s what the two pencils look like size by side. I have the shades ‘Dark’ in the Urban Decay and ‘Dark Brown’ in the Revolution Pro. As you can see, my Brow Beater has completely run out.

On first impressions the bodies of each pencil look very similar in terms of shape and size. The Urban Decay model definitely looks more high end with its glossy trademark-purple exterior compared with Revolution Pro’s black plastic exterior. However, the latter’s sleek silver and rose gold logo redeems it slightly.

What I liked so much about the Brow Beater was that the nib was so fine that I could get a lot of natural looking definition in my brows by mimicking tiny hairs, yet it was sturdy enough not to snap. So how does the Revolution Pro dupe measure up? Well, the nib is nice and thin, and you get much the same effect as with the Brow Beater. It’s not quite as pigmented but for most that could be solved by using a shade darker than normal, however it still gives good colour pay off. I did find that the nib isn’t as strong in the Revolution Pro version (it did snap once) and I did have a few issues with the retraction feature where it would get stuck every now and then. Both products are pretty smudge proof, with the Brow Beater ever so lightly longer wearing, and the spooly brushes are very similar in both products.

Overall, I would say that the Urban Decay pencil is stronger all across the board, but not by a huge leap, and for only £4 - a quarter of the price of Brow Beater - I will definitely be purchasing the Microblading Precision brow pencil from Revolution Pro again!

Disclaimer: This blog is in no way affiliated with or sponsored by any of the brands mentioned.