I have a thing for makeup brushes. I especially like good quality, synthetic brushes, because I find them softer and easier on the skin compared to natural-haired ones. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of great natural-haired makeup brushes out there. Synthetic brushes are just a personal preference of mine. Natural-haired brushes tend to scratch my skin.

I love the makeup brushes from Everyday Minerals (EDM). Except for the eye kabuki brush which was recently launched (I can’t wait to get my hands on it), I have all the brushes. They’re incredibly soft and work so well with mineral makeup (not just the ones by Everyday Minerals). By the way, the EDM makeup brushes are all synthetic-haired.

1. Baby Kabuki

USD6

This is just about the tiniest kabuki brush I have ever seen. It’s only 2″ long. You’d have to work a bit more in applying your mineral foundation with this one since it’s so small. But the quality of the brush is not compromised, and it’s great for traveling. I call this my Little Willy 😛

2. Long-Handled Kabuki

USD10

This was the first kabuki brush I used with the mineral foundation I bought from Everyday Minerals. It has a good-sized wooden handle, and applys the powders well. And it’s soft, so soft. Hmmm …

3. Flat Top Brush

USD10

If you’re looking for a kabuki brush for your mineral foundation, I highly recommend the EDM flat top brush. This performed much better than the long-handled kabuki, giving you great coverage in an instant. It takes a little more effort to reach places with the flat top brush, like the sides of your nose, but that didn’t bother me at all. Again, beautifully soft bristles.

4. Angled Blush Brush

Can’t recall the exact price of this brush. It’s definitely less than USD10.

I really like that the brush is angled, as it gives you better control when applying and blending blush on your face. Other than using the brush to apply blush on the apples of your cheeks, the angled hair can be used to contour your cheeks too, giving it more definition.

At the time of writing, the angled blush brush is currently not available on the EDM website. I reckon it’s sold out, since it’s quite a popular product.

5. Everyday Eye Shadow Brushes

USD5

The eye shadows brushes pick powder up pretty well. The tightly-packed bristles gives you good control of the colour. It’s also soft, which is what I like. Still, as far as all eye shadow brushes go, I wouldn’t say these packed a punch, but they’re all right.

6. Oval Concealer Brush

USD6

I admit that I bought this brush to complete the collection, rather than out of necessity. Its angular shape makes it easy to apply concealer powder under the eyes and to cover up blemishes. For some reason, I found the hairs on this brush rather limp, compared to the rest of the brushes.

A good thing about the EDM makeup brushes is that they do not shed. I read somewhere that the first generation of makeup brushes by EDM were lousy, and that the hairs shed like crazy. Not these babies, not the newer ones anyway. I wash these brushes once a week; not just wiping them with brush cleaners mind you, but actually scrubbing them out kinda thing. Only a hair or two (if not at all) falls off each time, which I think, is quite natural.

It’s too bad that EDM does not sell makeup brush cases as well, or else I’d snag one just to put my babies in. All of them, even Little Willy, need a home :p

So yeah, I highly recommend EDM’s makeup brushes. For their quality and low prices, I think it’s a great deal.

I was going to put this up a week ago; unfortunately it slipped my mind. My apologies, ladies.

It’s a Chanel mascara sample giveaway by David Jones. I really hope it still works though. I’ve printed the voucher out but always, ALWAYS, forget to bring it with me when I go to the city. Gah.

Anyhoos, why don’t you give it a go? Click here for the voucher, print it out, and bring to any David Jones’ Chanel counter.

Sorry ladies, Australian readers only this time 🙂

Now next to my nose, another very oily part of my face is, oddly enough, my eyelids. Come afternoon, and my eyelids would be oil slicks. I don’t understand why the area generates so much oil and sebum though. Eye shadows will crease on my peepers, no matter how good quality they are. One evening, I wore the NARS Habanera to a party, and 8 hours later, all the pigments slid of my lids and gathered in a thick, 1mm crease. I didn’t realise this until I went to the restroom. I had to use a tissue to remove all the eyeshadow because compared to the yucky thick crease line, I’d rather not have any eye shadow at all.

I’ve heard a lot about Too Faced’s Shadow Insurance eye primer on beauty blogs, and how it’s comparable to the uber popular Urban Decay Primer Potion (UDPP). As the latter is not available here, I decided to try out the Shadow Insurance. And honey, it was love at first sight.

Description:

Your full-coverage insurance policy against all fading, creasing, melting, blurring, oil-slicked and hard-to-blend eye shadow accidents. Our silicone-based eyeshadow primer transforms any eye shadow into a perfectly blendable, color-drenched, intensified version of its self, then locks it down perfectly until you take it off. Our skin soothing formula evens out the skin tone on your lids and smoothes outlines while it secures a barrier between the oils of your skin and your makeup, so no shadow catastrophes will ever happen again.

Benefits:
Vitamin E – Conditions, soothes and calms the delicate eye area.
Unique Binders – Volatiles lock down eye shadow pigments for amazingly long wear.
Tocopherol – Anti-aging, antioxidant moisturizer.
Versatility Galore – Use with powder or cream eye shadow products.
Reliable Beauty – Anti-creasing formula holds eye products in place.
Concentrated – The size of a rain drop covers the entire lid.

I’ve tried Bloom’s eye base, which didn’t work on my oil-slick peepers. I wasn’t sure if this would work either, but I just gotta try. And thank God I did, because this worked fantastically on my oily lids. It provided a very matte coverage on the eye lids, and made application of eye shadow smooth and easy. My eye shadows lasted many hours without the yucky crease lines. To me, who has had oily eye lids for so many years, it was like magic.

Sometimes I even use this WITHOUT eye shadow on. Seriously, my oily lids made it look as though I was crying at times. Yep, it’s that bad.

You only need so little of the eye primer per eye to work that magic. Blend it well on your eye lids using your ring finger (it has the least strength of all your fingers, and best to use when applying anything on the eye area. This includes eye creams as well) and let it sit for a minute or two before you apply your eye shadow. This is going to last me ages since I’d only need so little each time.

Since I’ve never tried the UDPP, I cannot tell you which one is better. But for this to work wonders on super oily eyelids with no crease at all with eye shadows, this is one heck of a product.

Too Faced Shadow Insurance is available at Kit Cosmetics counters or boutique at Myer or Chapel Street respectively. It costs AUD30. If you’re in the US, lucky you; it’s only USD17, and you can get it at Sephora.

What I like about it: Like? Dahlink, it’s LOVE. It got rid of the oilies on my eye lids and made my eye shadows creaseless. It’s beautiful, I tell you :p

What I did not like about it: Why is it bloody (almost) twice the price in Australia?! Sigh.