The 90s Brow Pencil Is Back – But Not As You Know It

It doesn't matter where you sit on the spectrum of contentious brow debates because one thing is certain: the 90s brow is back, but not as you know it. For every A-lister currently adorning extreme versions of pencil-sharp brows, from Rihanna on the cover of The Perfect Magazine (who brought us three iterations of barely-there brows in fact) to new-gen skinny brow legend Bella Hadid (who always makes a case for a pared back look), there is a lineup of 90s icons primed to air their tiny brow regrets. There's Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts and as of this weekend Sarah Michelle Gellar (more on that later) who have all admitted to having a brush with eyebrow blindness at one point in time. But a quiet revolution is taking place in the eyebrow world and it seeks to put an end to brow tribalism with a single product: the Merit Brow 1990 Gel Pencil, £26.

Dubbed the anti-trend brow pencil by insiders, the celeb-approved clean beauty brand's latest offerings, which include the Brow 1990 Gel Pencil as well as the relaunched Brow 1980 Volumising Brow Pomade, are intended to pay homage to brow trends through time – they nod to the pencil thin brows of the 90s and the fluffy arches of the 80s (think: Pamela Anderson and Madonna, respectively) – but are not entirely intended to recreate them.

Refreshingly, in one Instagram post, the brand writes, 'It's time to break the trend cycle,' and in another it says, 'We’ve always been told the most desirable brows are the ones we don’t have. The never-ending trend cycle has taken us from pencil-thin brows in the ‘90s to slick, feathered styles in recent years — and to us, that just feels like a lot of work. After all, we’re not makeup artists.'

The brand is so invested in learnings from the past, it recruited 90s legend Sarah Michelle Gellar to share her teachings. Her revelation? 'My biggest mistake from the ’90s that I think that everybody can agree with would be my sperm brows, that's right I said it, my brows looked like sperm'. That's certainly one way to put it, but Gellar has since rectified her thin, peculiar shaped brows into something far more flattering to her natural shape. And the Merit Brow 1990 Gel Pencil is key to achieving her new and updated 2024 brow.

Our honest review of the Merit Brow 1990 Gel Pencil

I'm a certified brow trend follower. I've been known to dabble in laminated brows, overfilled brows and have plenty of skinny brow horror stories, but over the years I've moved away from a strong brow look, much preferring something effortless that can get me out of the front door quicker. And that's where the Brow 1990 Gel Pencil comes in.

Inspired by gel eyeliner, with its ultra-fine 0.9mm tip (one of the thinnest eyebrow pencils on the market) and a unique soft gel formula that glides on for buildable coverage, this pencil doesn't promise to be revolutionary. It won't for example help you to create those tiresome hair-like strokes that other brow products guarantee, which I've admittedly never been able to achieve, instead it is designed to be uncomplicated in creating soft shadows which define and enhance natural-looking volume no matter your brow shape, fullness or level of expertise.

A play on words, the Brow 1990 Gel Pencil is made especially for Merit's millennial and Gen X customer base who may well have fallen victim to the over-plucked 90s brow à la Gellar and are now seeking easy solutions to ensure they don't make the same mistakes. Foolproof and simple to use, the brand describes it as an 'impossible-to-mess-up' essential that is geared towards those of us who never know what to do with our brows. That said, the name and sheer engineering of the tool means you can certainly create a perfectly done 90s brow if you should so choose. And therein lies the beauty of the pencil, a reminder that your brows are yours to do whatever you want with.

Shop: Merit Brow 1990 Gel Pencil