Got2b Schwarzkopf 2

Makeup is generally not the first item any sane person packs when going camping in the desert. But I, arguably, may not be any sane person. Because first up on my list of “items to pack for camping” was a small yellow tube of eyebrow gel.

I wouldn’t be making many glamorous appearances while in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert. I knew that. But, at the same time, I knew photos would be taken on this trip. And I knew that those photos would end up on social media. And, being who I am, well, I wanted to look good in those pictures.

But, after all, this was camping. And I’m pretty sure that the great explorers never worried about their contour. So I needed my face kit to be minimal. I decided that, during our few days in a tent in the middle of the desert, I was only going to wear moisturizer, eye cream, and a dash of Got2B's brow gel. Confident in my makeup packing, I accumulated a few more minor camping essentials and set off to spend a few nights under the stars with a friend — brow gel in tow.

The gel has gained a cult following and the brand says it's a product that can be used to hold both your brows and your edges in place. It has received more than 4,000 five-star reviews on Amazon, with reviewers praising the product’s “great hold,” “buildable coverage” and “easy application.” I hoped the application would remain as easy and the hold as strong as these reviewers promised.

Thankfully, the gel proved to be as easy to apply as the reviewers promised. I could swipe it on using my phone’s front-facing camera in the middle of a patch of cacti. The gel went on completely clear so even if the brush had slipped during application (which it didn’t, thank you very much), no one would have been able to tell.

The product features a two-sided brush. You’re supposed to use the brush’s rounded side to apply the gel, then the flat side to style it in your brows. Honestly, this doesn’t really matter. I couldn’t notice a difference when I used one side of the brush versus another. Both sides seemed to be equally effective at moving gel through my eyebrow hairs.

Luckily, I didn’t need to use very much product. The gel itself is fairly thick and packs the staying power of extra-strength hairspray that thickened the air during every dance recital in the ‘90s. But before it dried into place, the gel was extremely easy to style and helped provide a subtle structure, like shapewear for my brows.

One thing to note is that because the gel isn’t tinted, it won’t fill any gaps or sparse patches in your brows. But if that’s your worry, you can first fill in your brows with another product (reviewers recommend this, too), then comb through the gel to lock the look in place.

Although I’ve used gels, powders, and pencils for years, as a person with an extremely expressive face, I found that brow makeup tends to crumble a few hours after I put it on. Not so with the Got2B Brow Gel. Through swimming in the Rio Grande, hiking up and down the side of a mountain and even chasing a desert mouse out of our tent, my brows didn’t budge. And in my camping photos, you’ll spot a woman with permanently arched eyebrows looking (I hope) oh-so-low-maintenance and ever-so-extremely-cool.

It’s all thanks to the gel. After a few nights in the desert, I can confidently declare that I may not be able to ditch indoor plumbing but I can ditch my litany of eye makeup products. And although I’m not low maintenance, at least I have a brow gel that is now.