Obagi Eyebrow Boosting Serum Review

Ingredient lists are ordered by concentration, and the Nu-Cil Eyebrow Boosting Serum's is water, biotin, phenethyl caffeate, dehydrolatanoprost. That order is legal and probably accurate, and it is also a piece of composition: a vitamin and an antioxidant ester stand in front of the one ingredient in the tube that grows brows, which is a derivative of the glaucoma drug latanoprost and a prostaglandin analogue of the class that makes the prescription lash treatment work. Obagi's marketing calls it a proprietary lipid compound inside a biotin-led NouriPlex technology, and its safety notes, a scroll further down the page, warn that products containing prostaglandin analogs may cause iris discoloration. Both statements are on the same page. Only one of them is in the headline.

None of which changes the fact that the serum works, and works for the reason the class does. Prostaglandin analogues applied to the skin at the base of a hair prolong the growth phase of the follicle and increase the share of hairs growing at once, and in brows the evidence is unusually direct: a 2016 multicentre trial in Dermatologic Surgery randomised adults with eyebrow hypotrichosis to bimatoprost 0.03 percent once or twice daily or vehicle for seven months and found significantly more subjects improved on both bimatoprost schedules, with fullness gains from month two and darkening from month one, higher satisfaction from month two on, and, notably for a brow product, no skin or iris hyperpigmentation in the trial. Dehydrolatanoprost is a different molecule with no published trial of its own, and Obagi's twelve-week blinded study, reporting that every participant saw improved brow fill at eight weeks and nearly all saw better density and thickness, is held on file without a size; but the mechanism, the eight-week onset and the shape of the reviews all match the class.

The formula is twelve ingredients and almost identical to the brand's lash serum: water, biotin, the caffeate ester, the prostaglandin, a polymer for body, hyaluronate, an emollient ester, a glycol, alcohol, panthenol, a preservative and a pH adjuster. Biotin has no topical evidence for hair growth and is a conditioner here; hyaluronate and panthenol soften the hairs and keep the alcohol from drying the brow bone, and they are why brows feel better in the first weeks before anything grows; the caffeate is a plausible anti-irritant. It is a well-made vehicle for a single active, and the near-identical lash formula in a smaller tube costs less per millilitre, which is worth knowing for anyone tempted to buy one and use it for both.

In use the brush follows the brow's shape in one thin stroke on dry skin at night, dries in ninety seconds and vanishes. Hairs lie flatter and feel softer within two or three weeks; fill arrives from around week eight, and the reviewers who describe it describe gaps closing, tails returning and brows that need no pencil, which for over-tweezed and thinning brows is a genuine change. The hundred and ninety-odd reviews on Obagi's site sit at 4.2 stars because a minority describe the other half of the class: itch or redness along the brow bone in the first weeks, and, more often than with the lash serum, a deepening of the skin tone under and around the brow where the liquid strays. The brow is a large, visible patch of face, and darkening there shows in a way lid-line darkening under mascara does not; the 2016 bimatoprost trial saw none, which suggests dose and application discipline matter, and users who keep the stroke inside the hair and use a thin layer report far less of it.

The standing caveats are the class's. Brows return toward baseline over a few months after stopping, so the result is maintained rather than achieved; pregnancy and glaucoma drops are reasons to avoid it; reactive skin, eczema around the eyes and a tendency to post-inflammatory darkening make it a poor bet; and it should never be stacked with another prostaglandin lash or brow product.

One hundred and fifty dollars for five millilitres, about three months at nightly use, is roughly fifty dollars a month and the top of the prostaglandin brow serum market; the brand's own lash serum, near-identical in formula, costs less per millilitre, and the aesthetic brands that pioneered the category sell equivalent molecules for less again. What the money buys is Obagi's physician-channel name, a precise brush and a brand-run study; what it does not buy is a disclosed dose, a published trial or a label that says prostaglandin.

For thinning, sparse or over-tweezed brows on someone who understands what the active is, keeps the stroke inside the hair, has no pregnancy or glaucoma concerns and will keep using it, Nu-Cil fills brows the way only this class of serum does. For anyone who bought it for the biotin, or who would not have chosen a prostaglandin for a highly visible patch of face, the order of the ingredient list should have been the other way round.