I've had very few good experiences with eyebrow pencils, but a lot of good experiences with MUA products, so I was in mixed minds when I found that MUA had brought out their own eyebrow pencils. Maybe I'd finally get a good eyebrow pencil, and cheaply at that - or maybe it'd be terrible? Either way, £1 wasn't much to lose.

PACKAGING: The first thing I noticed about my pencil was that it was really long, about seven inches with the cap on - too big to fit into my little makeup bag! About an inch of that is the grooming brush at one end, but still, it's a lot of pencil for such a tiny price. When I first picked it up in Superdrug, I was surprised that it was one of MUA's £1 range and not a MUA Pro item! It looks very smart, with a metallic base on the brush end, as if MUA are upping their packaging ante a little. Both ends of the pencil have plastic caps to protect the brush and the soft crayon, which is a bit fiddly, but seems necessary and I wouldn't leave either of them off.

COLOURS: Unfortunately, the pencil only comes in two colours so far: Brunette, a deep chocolate brown, and Blonde, a lighter brown. I do hope the range is expanded in future, since both shades are quite warm and don't fully cater to people with more black-brown (me) or cool blonde hair. I tried my luck with the Brunette, and it's still perfectly usable, just not a precise match colour-wise.

APPLICATION: I was dreading that this would be as hard and unhelpful as my last Rimmel eyebrow pencil, but the texture turned out to be a joy. The pencil is highly pigmented with a soft, waxy texture that glides on with only the lightest pressure. I was surprised to see the ingredients on it, since pencils rarely list them, but this one includes Carnauba wax (a kind of palm wax), beeswax and cocoa butter. No wonder it's so nice and soft! It can look a bit heavy because it's so rich, but luckily it's great to blend; a few careful strokes followed by a lot of blending is the way to go. The provided brush does an okay job with this, though it's a bit stiff, as these brushes often are. If you have a preferred eyebrow brush you may as well use that, also saving on faffing about with the two separate caps. Nonetheless, it's nice to know that the product is self-contained if need be. Despite its softness, the pencil lasts most of the day, though expect it to have faded somewhat after a whole day out.

Overall, I really like this pencil and I'm glad to have taken a chance on it. The texture is excellent, and you get loads of product for the (very tiny) price. The only downsides are the lack of choice, and needing to sharpen often to keep the tip in shape. If MUA expands the colour range in future, this will be the perfect eyebrow pencil for me; they're already onto a winner with this formula, but since the Brunette isn't quite right on me, I can't give full marks. I do recommend these pencils anyway - they're easily as good or better than pencils that cost two or three times as much, and the colours might suit you better than me.