Hourglass Arch Brow Sculpting Pencil (Blonde)

Today I'm finally doing a review on the Hourglass Arch Pencil which you may have seen that I picked up well over a month ago as I popped it in a haul. However there were a few reasons that I took my time writing this post as I wanted to make sure I gave it a completely fair and honest trial, and so just as a warning now you may want to grab a cup of tea and get comfortable as this is going to be a long one.

As I'm sure you already know The Hourglass Arch pencil is one of those brow products that always gets compared to as being one of the best on the market, alongside the Anastasia Brow Wiz pencil, but it comes at a price. I put off buying it in hope that I would find a cheaper alternative that I enjoyed and this quest was met with little luck, Mac and Sleek to name just a few that I've reviewed on the blog and I've tried plenty more that I haven't bothered talking about on here for similar reason. Last month an Hourglass counter opened at my local John Lewis department store and I finally gave in to temptation and picked up the arch brow sculpting pencil in blonde.

Spoken about by so many as 'the best' and a 'holy grail' product. I had high hopes to say the least. With its undeniably dreamy packaging that both looks and feels exquisite, at one end comes a lovely firm spoolie brush and a retractable pencil at the other, on the outside it certainly looks like it fits the bill. I couldn't wait to get home and use it, I was barely through the door before I had a bottle of makeup remover in hand ready to take off my existing eyebrow product so I could play with the Hourglass pencil. Yep - this is it, I thought, I've finally found an eyebrow product I'm going to love. It was like the first few days of a new relationship - exciting and full of hope that something special will become.

The colour choice was perfect for me. The texture of the pencil was a dream to work with. The packaging was totally luxurious. I was besotted.

However, on about the third or fourth day after buying this disaster struck. Half way through doing my eyebrows the retractable end completely stopped working. The entire pencil section plopped out of the packaging and thankfully I do my makeup standing over my worktop and so I managed to catch it in time. This was so completely unexpected, like what the heck!? I've never heard of anything like this happening even with a drugstore product let alone a high end brow product. I managed to carefully distribute the fragile looking pencil back in its casing but the retractable bit had completely given up the ghost and wasn't going up and down at all. I was not impressed to say the least and was straight back to my Hourglass counter within the week where they did let me change it for a new one.

This time when I arrived home with my 'new' (and by that I mean the second) Hourglass Arch Brow pencil I didn't get the same excitement that I felt as the first time. The whole experience of having the pencil section fall out the end really put a bit of a damper on the thrill of what is supposed to be such a high quality product. And every time I used the new replaced pencil for the first little while it felt like I was on tender hooks and I was going about it very carefully in case history repeated itself.

A few weeks passed and it seemed as though the disaster of the first pencil was all just a nasty dream. I took the Hourglass Arch Pencil away with me on my holiday without any problems, got home everything was fine then a few days later came September favourites time. I concluced that because generally speaking I really enjoy this as brow product as a whole despite the first little mishap that it would be a monthly favourite.

 On the morning I wrote my September favourites I gathered all my products together took the picutres, put the camera away to one side and went about my normal morning routine, jumped in the shower, dried my hair, went to put my makeup on - go to use the Hourglass pencil and I heard the retractable end make a bit of a funny clicky noise. And to my absolute horror I realised that the pencil part had become loose in the packaging again, and so if you were to tip the pencil all the way downwards it would completely fall out of the packaging again as it did before. Weridly the retractable part still goes up and down unlike the first time where it just seemed to stop working altogether. But it still leaves me with the problem that the pencil part of mine seems to be loose and could fling out at any minute if I'm not careful with it.

I'm completely at a loss with this product and don't really know what I should do about it. I don't think I even have the receipt to take it back for the second time plus I wouldn't even want a replacement now I think I'd rather just have my money back as in my opinion this is utterly unacceptable for a £25+ product to happen not once but twice! Plus I just feel a bit fed up keep having to faff about returning stuff that should have just worked properly in the first place for the price it is.

This has to be the most frustrating thing ever because in principal I love the product but at the same time I absolutely hate it because of what has happened with mine (twice I tell you people!) I don't know if there was a bad batch in production or if this has ever happened to anyone else's but it certainly won't be a product I can ever recommend to anyone unless they want to throw away money like I feel I have. Biggest, biggest regret ever buying this product. How did this happen and how have I had such terrible luck with such a loved beauty item? I'm bitterly disappointed.

 

QOTD: Have you tried the Hourglass Arch Brow Sculpting Pencil? How did you find it?