Hailey’s Right: One Brown Pencil Is All You Need For A Full Face

If any colour is enjoying a renaissance right now, it’s brown. In beauty, we’ve long celebrated the use of the sort of warm-toned bronze made popular by Mario Dedivanovic and his “muse” Kim Kardashian, but in recent years, the industry has come to embrace cool-toned ash browns, and deep shades of cacao and ganache, too.

One notable fan, Hailey Bieber, is such a big proponent she’s embracing the brown pencil theory – which has it that the single product is all you need to create a sculpted, seamless face. The model frequently takes to TikTok for a GRWM armed with her Peptide Lip liner and little else.

The ultimate less-is-more approach, using a single brown pencil for the entire face creates a monochromatic finish. Here’s how to do it.

How to try the brown pencil theory

First, choose the right pencil – it needs to be creamy enough to blend, with cool tones and enough pigment to effectively create shadows and sculpt the face. Then:

• Upper lash line: Apply the brown pencil as close as possible to the upper lashes, blending it lightly for a soft, diffused liner that accentuates without looking too harsh.
• Eyelid: Scribble the pencil over the upper eyelid, then blend with your fingers or a small, fluffy brush to create a warm, even, elegant shadow.
• Lips: A brown pencil makes a wonderful lip contour. Start by following the natural line of the mouth – don’t worry about it being too neat or perfect – then blend it inwards towards the centre of the lip for a natural contour effect.
• Cheekbones: Draw a discreet, small line under the cheekbone, blending it upwards and out (towards the edge of the face) to create a natural shadow.
• Temples: Lightly rub the pencil over the temples before blending towards the hairline for a caught-in-the-sun swish of bronze.
• Freckles: Gently tap the tip of the pencil on the nose and the tops of the cheeks, then blend very lightly with your fingertips to make each faux freckle look blurred and seamless.