Review & Comparison: NARS Brow Perfector vs Anastasia Brow Wiz

I recently impulse-bought the new NARS Brow Perfector. I didn’t really mean to, but I had made the hour and a half drive to the closest Nordstrom to go clothes shopping and apparently I don’t have the ability to walk past a makeup counter without stopping to browse. After spending a little while playing around with the different colors, I knew I needed to take one home with me – I ended up picking the darkest color, Suriname.

Packaging

The Brow Perfector comes in a retractable pencil form that rolls up and down. The casing is smooth matte plastic, not the slightly rubbery packaging that they use on their blushes, etc. The pencil is light but feels solidly made. The twisting mechanism doesn’t have as much resistance as I’d like – it rolls up and down very easily – but it’s perfectly functional. The crayon itself has an oval tip.

Color

Suriname

There are four colors available:

• Salzbourg – Blonde
• Kalamata – Light Brown
• Caucase – Brown
• Suriname – Black

I was so busy playing with makeup that I didn’t swatch them all together, but you can see comparison swatches at Vampy Varnish. Suriname is a pretty good match for my hair color – cool-toned and dark, but not so super-black that it looks like I used eyeliner on my brows. The other brown colors would probably work well for filling dark brown hair, but since I draw in a large portion of my brows I needed the darkest one.

Texture/Application

The pencil is fairly hard. It’s made to transfer easily onto skin with a little bit of oil on it, so it’s super hard to swatch on your arm but goes onto your brows easily. The color is buildable, so you can fill in softly or build up the color to make it darker. The shape makes it easy to get a precise line or softly fill in larger areas.

Wear

I’ve worn this product both with and without my NARS eye primer under it, and I’ve had no problems with it fading or smearing during a 12-15 hour day. At the request of a friend, I tested it while working out to see how it would hold up to exercise (pardon the weird angle and bathroom lighting):

After 7 hours of normal wear

After 7 hours of wear plus a three mile run.

After several hours of wear and a three-mile run, it didn’t fade or run, which I found pretty impressive. Granted, I wasn’t sweating the hardest I ever have, but it’s nice to know it would last through a hectic work day or a normal workout.

vs Anastasia Brow Wiz in Ebony

If you’ve been around for a while, you probably know that I’m pretty impressed by the Anastasia Brow Wiz. I’ve repurchased it multiple times and wear it basically every day. So how does the NARS Brow Perfector stack up?

The Anastasia pencil is a little longer and much thinner than the NARS pencil. The Anastasia also includes a spoolie, which NARS doesn’t. I find the NARS pencil more comfortable to hold and use, and I can get closer to the mirror – always a nice thing for glasses-wearers.

Left: Anastasia Brow Wiz Ebony
Right: NARS Brow Perfector Suriname

The colors are very similar. Ebony is a little more brown-toned, which might make it work for a wider range of hair colors. On the face, though, they look very similar. The Brow Wiz is available in six colors vs the Brow Perfector’s four. Specifically, I think the NARS options may be leaving redheads out a little bit.

Left: Anastasia Brow Wiz
Right: NARS Brow Perfector

The texture of the pencils is very similar. Both are fairly hard and can deposit just a little bit of color or be built up more. There’s one big difference though, and that’s the size of the crayon. The tip of the NARS pencil is much larger, so it can cover a lot more area. The logical result is I can get my brows on much faster with the NARS pencil.

One last thing worth knowing. Even though the NARS pencil doesn’t include a spoolie, you do get more than twice as much product for just a dollar more. The Anastasia pencil is .003oz for $21, and the NARS pencil is .007oz for $22. However, the NARS Brow Perfector isn’t as widely available yet – you can get it at Nordstrom, Saks, Neiman Marcus and Space NK, but the Anastasia pencil is available at Ulta and Sephora, which have more locations.

In Short: Right now the NARS pencil has been promoted to my daily brow product. The spoolie on the Brow Wiz makes it a great option for travel, but NARS pencil is a bit easier to use, not to mention a great value for the money.

The NARS Brow Perfector is available at nordstrom.com, spacenk.com, neimanmarcus.com and saks.com.