Can I darken my brows by using a tanning foam? | Anita Bhagwandas on beauty hacks

The hack
Using fake tan as a brow dye.

The test
I’ve tried a plethora of ways to darken my brows to avoid having to endure the laborious application of various brow pencils and gels on my wide but sparse brows. Though professional brow tinting has had the best results (Blink Brow Bar and Benefit have great nationwide options for this), I have often wished that there was a way I could just do it myself – and if this works, it could be faintly genius.

I chose Bondi Sands dark self-tanning foam, one of the darkest tan shades out there. Using a cotton bud, I applied some of the mixture to my brows and then left it on for an hour as the bottle instructed. There was some subtle darkening. I tried again and left it on longer, but that didn’t do much more.

After watching a ton of people do this on YouTube, with varying results from orange brows through to ones that looked great, I tried again. This time I used a method of painting the tan in the brow hairs with a small paintbrush, but that was even less effective. This is an excellent tanning product for skin, but it didn’t work as a brow dye for me.

The verdict
Give it a go on lighter skin and hair colours, but I’d suggest testing the shade on other patches of less visible hair first. For those with dark skin and/or dark hair, professional tinting or an at-home kit is probably the way to go.