We tried $9 vs. $54 brow gel to see which is worth the money

• We tested brow gels from Canmake, Glossier, Anastasia Beverly Hills, and Tom Ford to find the best one.
• The four brow gels were tested on how comfortable they are on the brows, how well they tame the brows, and how they hold up after eight hours.
• Tom Ford's $54 Brow Gel Comb surprisingly came out on top with its comfortable formula, great wear time, and easy application.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Nico Reyes: Today we're gonna be testing out four brow gels that range from $9 to $54. Brow gel is a really good way to keep all your brow hairs locked into place, and you can use it to give you some volume for that fluffy eyebrow look that I feel like we all want, or at least I really want. The perfect brow gel for me would be one that has enough hold for my very thick and unruly eyebrows, isn't gloopy or glue-like, and leaves my brows soft and not stiff. All of the brow gels that I'm gonna be trying out are clear brow gels. I didn't wanna focus on the color. I really just wanna see how these brow gels perform on their own. At the end, I'll rank each brow gel based on how well it actually tamed my brows and how comfortable it was to wear all day long. I guess that's it. Let's start the first brow gel.

The first brow gel that we're gonna test out is the Canmake Lasting Multi Brow Coat, and this retails for $9. I ordered it online. You can't find this at a drug store. I'm so sorry. But I have a good reason for picking this one. I actually saw this article on Allure saying that people were going crazy over this brow gel on Reddit, and I was so excited to try it out for myself. Apparently your brows will not move until you're ready to take them off, so let's get this on my brows. I'm a little nervous, because looking at it straight-up in this bottle, it just looks like Krazy Glue. It is so drippy-droppy and wet. I've never seen a brow gel with this, like, nail-polish-brush applicator. It says to use a small amount and just paint over already-done eyebrows. I filled mine in with a little bit of pencil, so let's just do it, I guess. How do I...this way? This way? Yeah, I'll do...[laughs] It feels like I'm putting on clear polish on my freaking eyebrow. It is kind of annoying that this isn't just a spoolie, because it's more of a brow coat than a brow gel, but it's much easier with a spoolie to kind of brush every individual hair up into the shape that I want it to be. So now I'm just gonna go in with a dry, clean mascara brush. One thing I forgot to do before was smell it, so let me just take a little sniff right now. It smells literally like hairspray. It smells exactly like hairspray to me. Wow, so maybe this is just the liquid of hairspray in a little pink bottle. So, I actually do not hate how my brows look right now. It is kind of annoying that I have to have, like, a separate spoolie because this one doesn't come with a spoolie, but my brows look and feel pretty good. They're still pretty flexible. Let me just touch them to see how they feel. OK, so they're not hard, they're not stiff, they're not crunchy. It does feel, like, a little bit filmy on my brows. Kind of like how dry shampoo feels in hair. That's the exact feeling. Like, a little powdery or something. My hair looks crazy. Let's not talk about it. Let's talk about these brows, which look good still, in my opinion. I feel like my brows genuinely haven't moved all day long. That Canmake stuff I don't think is no joke... what? Like, I don't see a single hair out of place since I applied it. Oof. My makeup looks rough right now, but my brows still look good, so that's something. We do have a few more brow gels to test, so I cannot be too hasty in saying that I like one more than the others, but... this is pretty good.

The next brow gel that we're gonna try out is the Glossier Boy Brow, which retails for $16, and for a long time this was, like, the brow gel. Everyone was raving about this brow gel. I bought it a few times, so I know how good it actually is. Aside from this being on every single best-brow-gel list that I've seen, I really wanted to include it in this test because I saw this review on the Glossier website. This girl was apparently hit by a car while wearing this brow gel, and it survived that. So I was like, yeah, we need to have this in this test. This dries clear, right? [laughs] Right now it looks a little gloopy and weird in my eyebrow, but I'm gonna give it a few minutes and let it just dry. I'm sure it's gonna dry clear. Right? My brows do look a lot more groomed than they did before, so the Boy Brow did a good job in that aspect, but this clear formula is leaving behind some very weird white residue on my brows that I don't think that I like. I've only ever tried this formula with, like, the brown tint, so this is new to me. I went to the website to see if anybody else was having the same problems as me, and I did find a review that said it leaves behind a white residue. So that's kind of disappointing. I really don't think that this one is gonna be the best clear option, but we'll just have to see. My brows look pretty OK, but there are spots that look very disheveled. Like, this brow tail over here, I don't know what even happened. It's like, hairs are sticking out all over the place over there, and on this side it's, like, a little bit lumpy, a few little nooks and nicks... nooks and nicks? It looks weird, is what I'm trying to say. Something about this area right here. I don't know. I don't feel like this is the Boy Brow experience that I'm used to, so I'm, like, a little weirded out by it. It's definitely not my favorite as a clear brow gel, so there's that.

The next brow gel that I'm gonna be trying out is the Anastasia Beverly Hills clear brow gel, and this is $22, which is up there, I think, for a brow gel. But this is, like, a hearty size. I think that if any brand was gonna have a good brow gel, it would be Anastasia Beverly Hills, who have, like, built their entire brand off of eyebrows. So I don't think this one is gonna do me wrong, like another brow gel that I won't mention again. I actually really like this brush. I like how big it is, 'cause it makes it really easy to do it very quickly. I think that's it. My brow is done. It looks really groomed to me. I'm gonna let it dry. It still feels a little wet on my brow. Yeah, I think that looks really, really nice, actually, and it doesn't look like it's messing with the brow product that I already had on, which I feel like, yesterday, that's what was also going on. This just looks like a clear brow gel on an already-done eyebrow. It maybe feels, to the touch, a little stiff. Like, stiffer, I feel like, than the ones that I've tried, but it doesn't feel that way on my brow, if that makes sense. Like, me doing this, it doesn't feel stiff. If I touch it, It feels a little gel-like, like it's a little tiny bit...cronch [laughs] on my eyebrow. I'm actually really impressed with how this Anastasia brow gel has held up on my eyebrows. I will admit, I fell asleep. I took a little nappy nap. And my brows still look good, so that's reason enough for me to like it. I feel like my brow hairs look really put together still, they look very combed down. As the day went on, I noticed that that stiff feeling that I was feeling in the studio when I first applied it kinda goes away, and touching them now, I don't feel it anymore.

The last brow gel that I'm gonna be trying out is, of course, from Tom Ford, and this is a $54 brow gel comb. This one is described as having a universally flattering tint. I don't know what that means, but it sounds like clear adjacent. Then I received it in the mail and realized that it says Tom Ford for Men. Like, this is a "for men" brow gel comb thing. I don't really think that matters. I think brow gel is brow gel, and we're just gonna try it out and see what happens. So, it says that it can be used on all hair colors, and for me that means it's, like, clear enough to where it's not gonna do that much. Um...oh! Oh, that's fine. It blends out, for the most part, pretty clear. It's just, like, slightly tinted. Oh! Oh, I see it happening! I see it combing! [gasps] It's working! Actually, I feel like it's giving me a little bit too much separation. I definitely don't think I need to twist out any more gel because my brow feels soaked right now. Like, it feels way too wet for me to use any more. This is actually pretty nice. I don't hate this. I guess we're done. I feel like that looks really good, actually. I love that. It didn't hurt at all, which is what I was expecting. These little nubs on the comb part, I guess, like, the comb teeth, I was expecting them to be really, really hard and aggressive on my brow and, like, rip hairs out, but it didn't. I think it actually looks really good. This comb though actually separates the hair so well and brushes it so nicely that it leaves your brows looking very naturally groomed. Like, it doesn't look like I fuss too much over my brows, it's just, like, a one-and-done type of thing. We have a huge problem. Like, we have a huge problem because I think that I really, really, really like a $54 eyebrow gel. I don't know what it is about this thing. I just feel like my brows look really good and haven't really moved since I applied it, so... I don't know, I really like it! I think the comb is probably my favorite part about it. Like, if I had the Anastasia or the Canmake gel with that little comb applicator, I feel like I'd pick one of those over this one.

The time of testing out brow gels is officially over, and I have a lot of things to say. Let's start off with the worst, which I think just has to be the Glossier Boy Brow, which sounds so horrible to say. So many people love this brow gel, but something about this clear, pomade-y formula is just not nice looking. At least on my brows, it really didn't look that good no matter how much or how little I applied, and it wasn't the most comfortable to wear. The brow gel that actually managed to keep my brows in place all day, kept them looking really nice and filled in and fluffy just like I wanted them to, was actually the Tom Ford brow comb. The $54 brow gel was what made my brows look the best, and I'm sorry, but it really was so good. If this wasn't my job, I never would have tried this brow gel out, but I'm glad that I gave it a chance. I went into it not thinking that it was gonna be good with a price like that, but it actually surprised me and worked really, really well.