Happy Monday fellow beautyholics! We’ve finally come to the end of Makeup Favourites Week for 2014. Aww! It’s been a lot of fun writing this lil’ mini series and I hope you’ve enjoyed it too.
To finish off Makeup Favourites Week, I’d love to share my top 10 makeup brushes with you. I’ve been accumulating a lot of makeup brushes over the years (yes, the word isn’t “collecting”, it’s “accumulating”. Ish.) and it took me a long time to finally discover the brushes I now love to use. I don’t wear a lot of eye makeup so I don’t have many eye makeup brushes here. However, I do wear foundation and powder frequently so you’ll find a lot of face brushes in this list.
Just thought I’d give you a little heads up; a lot of the makeup brushes here are pretty expensive and most of them have natural hair. Personally, I find that certain natural-haired brushes work better for me but that’s not to say that I’m advocating you to buy only natural-haired brushes. There are also a lot of very good synthetic-haired brushes that work well too. For me, it’s simply a personal preference. Even though a number of them are expensive, I take very good care of them and good quality brushes can last you many years. In fact, I have brushes in my beauty stash that are at least 14 years old and they’re still in very good condition.
Alrighty, let’s get started! Here they are in no particular order.
Hakuhodo Face Powder Brush
To be honest, I have no idea which range/series this brush is from. I picked it up at IMATS a few years ago and I can’t remember they mentioned exactly what model this brush was when they were selling their huge variety of brushes at the expo. The closest I’d say it is would be the J series. This is a natural-haired brush, is the second softest brush I own (will tell you what the softest brush I have is below) and is very fluffy. It makes the MAC 150 brush feel like a very harsh brush in comparison. Perfect for sweeping loose powder, Guerlain’s Meteorites and pressed powder on the skin without picking too much product up. This is my #1 face brush. Unfortunately, it sheds something awful and for something that costs so much (over $80), it stings my heart each time I see more hairs drop out.
Hakuhodo Blush Brush
Again, I have no idea what model this brush is. It’s harder for me to check on the website because so many of the blush brushes look the same! This was another brush I picked up at the IMATS. It’s not as soft as the Face Brush but it’s still very soft nevertheless. Unlike the Face Brush, this is more firmly packed at the base making the bristles more dense. I love the softness of this brush and how easy it is to apply powder blush with. This would be my #1 blush brush.
Shiseido Foundation Brush
This synthetic-haired brush was highly raved by beauty bloggers a few years ago and when Tina got one for me from Taiwan, I finally understood why. I’m not typically a fan of foundation brushes (especially the flat ones) as I apply mine with my fingers but this one from Shiseido is really good at evening product out without leaving streaks behind unlike flat foundation brushes. This is great for buffing foundation in and making it look flawless on the skin. This is expensive in Australia (around the $40-$50 mark, I think?) so when I saw this in Japan selling for $16 each, I picked up a few more.
Real Techniques Domed Shadow Brush
I’ve tried many eyeshadow brushes but so far, I still prefer this synthetic-haired one from Real Techniques. It’s easy to pick eyeshadow up and apply on the eyelids with minimal fall-out. I’ve used this brush so much that most of the words printed on the brush have already fallen off (I had to Google the actual name of the brush!). That’s a sign of a well-used brush, don’t you think? 😛
SUQQU Cheek Brush
This is the softest blush brush (natural hair) I have and technically, also the most expensive. I kid you not, my heart aches at how expensive this is but when I saw it in Japan, my head switched off and my heart just took over my wallet. It’s very soft and fluffy, which makes it great for applying highly-pigmented blushes because it only picks up little product that you can’t go overboard with blush, yet it’s also useless in applying sheer blushes because you can be swirling that brush till kingdom comes and you still won’t get enough colour on your cheeks. Okay, that’s an exaggeration but you get the drift. Nevertheless, a lovely blush to own and I’m sticking with it because I paid through my nose for it. Ahem.
Makeup Geek Outer V Brush
I bought a few of Makeup Geek’s makeup brushes and while all of them are good (really, you ought to check ’em out!), the Outer V Brush is great. I’m the kind who is absolutely hopeless in creating that outer V eyeshadow gradient thingamajiggy and my usual domed eyeshadow brushes cannot draw that outer V on without smudging and looking like I’ve been punched in the eyes. The Outer V Brush picks up just the right amount of the pigment and better yet, its size and shape makes it very easy to draw that V on without making it look over the top. I don’t know how else to explain it but if you love doing that smokey eye gradient look (lighter on the inner corners, darker at the outer corners), you have to try the Outer V Brush out. Great stuff. All of Makeup Geek makeup brushes are synthetic-haired.
MAC 217 Blending Brush
I only own two MAC brushes, the 150 and the 217. The 150 (face brush) is rarely touched now since I’ve found better and much softer brushes but I have to say, no other blending brushes I own can beat the 217. This is a natural-haired brush. It’s fantastic in blending out harsh lines and it’s very soft too. I’ll give it to you, MAC; you and I have never really gotten along but I take my hat off to you for the 217 blending brush.
NARS #15 Smudge Brush
I first heard of this natural-haired brush from Paris B and I remembered thinking, that’s a mighty tiny brush! During one of my late night online shopping sprees (very dangerous, these ones!), I picked this brush up along with some items from Kiss and Makeup NY. What a dinky little brush it is and my oh my, how useful! I’ve used tiny liner brushes to line the top and bottom lashes but none of them worked as well as the NARS #15. As it’s flat, bristles incredibly short and densely packed, it picks up a good amount of product and lines the lash line very well. This is one of my must-haves in my brush collection.
Royal & Langnickel SILK Pro Pointed Liner C485
This is another synthetic-haired brush I picked up from IMATS. This is perfect for adding that pop of colour on the inner corners of the eyes. It’s also really good for spot concealing. If you’re at IMATS, I highly recommend Royal & Langnickel brushes over the Crown ones. The R&L ones are much better quality, in my opinion.
Louise Young Super Blush Brush
Given that I’m such a blush fiend, it’s only right that most of my favourite brushes are blush ones, right? This brush by Louise Young is a lovely one. It’s quite flat and slightly tapered (unlike the other ones mentioned here that are round). It has very soft natural hairs. The brush is pretty dense, picks up quite a lot of product so I prefer using this on sheer blushes. (review here)
Honourable mentions:
Master Makeup by Dean Nixon #1 Kabuki Brush
I know this is a top 10 makeup brush list but I feel as though I must give a couple of honourable mentions to 2 more brushes that are also very good. One of them is the #1 Kabuki Brush by Master Makeup by Dean Nixon. I bought this natural-haired brush at Salon Melbourne a couple of years ago. It’s really good for applying face powder and even bronzer (I don’t use it with the latter so much). As it’s so widely fanned out yet firmed packed at the base, it’s pretty dense but not enough that you end up with too thick layer of powder on the skin.
Real Techniques Blush Brush
It’s funny how the blush brush from Real Techniques is bigger than their face brush! I actually use their face brush as a blush brush and this blush brush as a face brush! This synthetic-haired brush is great to use with my Guerlain Meteorites and the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder. I rotate the use of this brush with my Hakuhodo face brush.
There you have it, my list of top 10 makeup brushes. I love these brushes to bits and use them very often. I’d also like to add that Ecotools also does very good makeup brushes, especially face brushes. I didn’t add them to the list only because it was getting a tad too long. My Honourable Mentions would turn out to be longer than my top 10 list!
That’s it for Makeup Favourites Week for 2014. Let’s see what 2015 has in store for us, eh? 🙂
What about you? What are your favourite makeup brushes? What are the ones that you must use in your makeup routine that you might even be thinking of getting multiples of?
Catch up on Makeup Favourites Week!
Most informative. Hakuhodo is a brand I have learned about relatively recently. It reminds me of the high end tires with Japanese names 😉 I have a motley collection plus a set of Sonia Kashuk brushes and a set of Crown brushes. So far, I’ve been doing synthetic. The brushes that I’m lusting after are the new brushes from IT Cosmetics. Do you have that brand in Australia? I don’t know whether they are natural or synthetic but they are so packed and sooooooo soft. I’m saving up to buy some one at a time 😉
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Hakuhodo brushes are like waaaaaayy up there compared to most makeup brushes. Which is why I could only get two because they’re really really expensive! We can’t get Sonia Kashuk brushes here but I’ve heard so many good things about them. Sephora Australia is opening in Sydney in December and they’ll be stocking IT Cosmetics. That’s one of the brands I’m very keen on checking out when I’m in Sydney next.
I love MAC 217 brush too. It makes blending eyeshadows so easy! It’s the only brush I haven’t found a dupe for yet either. Definitely worth the investments. I’d love to try Hakuhodo brushes too but they are so expensive!
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I thought I found dupes of the 217 when I went to IMATS but nope, nothing worked as well. A lot of blending brushes are round whereas the 217 is flat. I find the “flatness” better.
Yeah tell me about it. Even worse, my Hakuhodo face brush sheds something awful even though I take very good care of it. I reckon I bought a lemon but only found out about it after the expo was over so I couldn’t return it. Sigh. The blush brush? Not a single hair shed.
I’m saving up for hakuhodo brushes, though at any rate it may be take a little while, kid’s still my number 1 priority haha. Love real techniques brushes, pretty good selection and wallet-friendly. I like RT setting brush for setting my undereye concealer. RT deluxe crease brush has made its way into my faves too. My other faves wld be ecotools bronzer brush (humongous. Great for quick powder application), it cosmetics wand ball brush and the good old The Body Shop kabuki brush.
Just realised my faves are like you, majority are for base makeup lol
Great picks Tine. haven’t use much from the ones mentioned except the Real Techniques and the MAC 217. Real Techniques is one gem of an affordable brand.
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I agree. There are people who said they’re overrated. I wouldn’t say every brush they have is good but a lot of them are really not bad at all.
Lovely picks Tine. I have the Hakuhodo J505 Blush Brush which I love but I was told I should not wash it too often as it might shed more hair. I also have the Shiseido foundation brush and the Real Techniques Blush brush which I use for my Meteorites. LOL. I got that tip from Paris B :-). I read from a blogger who uses Hakuhodo brushes extensively that J5523 is an exact dupe of MAC 217 and it is actually softer and better than the MAC one. Maybe you can try just to compare.
Does your Hakuhodo brush have the model number stamped on it or do you just remember what it is? Mine doesn’t have any markings of the model so I have absolutely no idea what they are.
Mine has the number stamped on it. Not sure if its a recent thing because I bought my brush early this year at their booth in KL Convention Centre.