Make-up: Making Eyebrow Pencils

Here's how I made a few eyebrow pencils the other day. 

I used to make only a couple of makeup pencils at a time – all from scratch, but over the past couple of years I have taken to pre-making my pencil base in a larger quantity (enough for about 15 slim or 5 chubby pencils) and storing the base mixture in my ingredients fridge.

When I need to do a pencil or 2, I grab the base and go from there.

So! All I needed to do here was choose and mix my colors, then add to the base.

For this batch, I'm doing a dark charcoal color. 

The pigments and powders are white titanium dioxide and silk black. The powders are measured up and sifted. 

I work with 2 small bowls so I can sift from one bowl to the next. The powders are sifted together several times. 

Titanium dioxide has a 'larger grain size' than the silk black and will show up as tiny specks in the product even after being thoroughly sifted together. Here the color has only been sifted twice. 

I usually do about 10-12 passes through the sift. I could have used a small powder grinder, but with such a small amount of color, it's faster and more practical to sift the colors together.

When the color is ready, the pencil base is measured out and put into a small beaker for melting. In the middle of the picture is the disposable syringe I will be using to fill the pencils.


The base is heated very slowly until it is entirely melted.  When the base is liquid, the pigments mixture is added and everything is stirred thoroughly. 

The mixture is transferred to a disposable syringe and the pencils are filled. 

The mixture stiffens quickly so speed and dexterity are important. It's a good idea to have a disposable layer on your work surface. I usually make a mess, so having only a layer of paper towels to discard makes cleanup easy.

After the pencils are set, they can be sharpened and are ready to go. 

I do have tops for these pencils, but they aren't in the picture. These pencil casings are plastic - easy to fill and easy to sharpen, and some of the best I've worked with.