You may have seen these brushes floating around the blogosphere, and of course when I saw them I had to pick them up! For just under £2 each, these brushes have been reviewed as wonderful alternatives. I really wanted to try them out a little before I gave my two pennies, and here I am! The reason this is part 1 is because I have ordered another set but it’s yet to arrive ._.
Now I am a makeup brush fanatic, they’re probably in my top 3 of things I like to buy (along side makeup itself and sweets of course). The response I read on my instagram and in the comments to my second post of this series was ’whoa girl you got a LOT of brushes’. Y’know some girls collect bags, others shoes..and I seem to collect brushes! and when I see potential backups, for a very reasonable price it is certainly going into my basket!
I will be going through each brush in turn and sharing if and why I like them and also what I use them for. I’ve ordered from two sellers recently (I also have this random blue one but don’t really like it so haven’t featured it) and as they come from the East they took around 2 and a half week to get here. Starting with the first seller, (LINK) I ordered these two brushes:
As you can see these are almost identical in colour to the Real Technique core collection, and around the same size too. On first touch you will notice that the bristles are extremely soft (to the point where you want to rub them against your face), and not very dense. The bottom’s of these brushes aren’t the same rubber feel of the RT’s but they are useful in that they can stand up easily on any flat surface so a thumbs up from me!
I was particularly interested in getting the angled brush (number 5 from this seller) as I wanted to see if it would make a different to application and I tried this with foundation three times…because it isn’t as dense as the buffing brush it was a little more time consuming to blend into the skin and make sure it was an even application. I do however love the angle for light contouring, as it gets right under the cheekbones and softness makes it easy to blend out. It also works well as a great powder brush, again because of the angle it can get into the corners of your face with ease! A back up from the buffing brush? Maybe not, but a great brush to have around nonetheless!
photo comparison of this brush and the RT contouring brush which is one of my favourites!
The next one is smaller and where the first one lacked density this one makes up for! I believe it is number listed number 1 out of the five this seller stocks. It has a distinctive tapered point and when I saw it I instantly thought it would be great for contouring. This COULD be a backup of the RT contour brush, but of course when it comes to blending out the products its not so great because of how dense the bristles are. I think this would work amazingly well with cream contouring, and now I really want to jump out of bed and try it! (hopefully I’ll post an update in here sharing what I found!). The primary use I've found for it is actually highlighting, it puts just the right amount of product on the exact areas that I want to be brightened up.
The next three were from a different seller (link here) and I was pleasantly surprised to see they actually came in boxes – a nice little touch! These are pink in colour, again similar to the RT ‘finishing touches’ brushes multi-task, blush and setting. The first one that I was the most excited to try out was the stippling brush..
This is because I did actually own a Real Techniques one but (I never share this story because it makes me feel so distraught slight exaggeration but I may aswell let it all out seeing as this is the brush series!) from the first time I used it I knew it was a faulty brush ._. it was rough and unkind to my skin, and when I washed it soooooo many hairs came out! I was horrified because to the best of my knowledge Real Techniques brushes never shedded!! I did have to chuck it out, but thank fully it was JUST the stippling brush that was faulty and not the rest of my collection!
Ok back to the review, I ADORE THIS BRUSH! Before I used these I washed them, and only one hair came out of this which was most promising. It has a decent sized head, not too large but not tiny and it’s a dream to use with creamy products…and for blending out blusher overload of course! It is super soft and doesn’t shed a tonne like the e.l.f small stippling brush seems too. I’ve used this almost every time I’ve applied makeup since buying it, so a huge thumbs up from me!
Next in line is a long very dense type of brush (the first one in the photo), and I THINK its the one called 'long' from the five this seller has. This is probably the one I have reached for the least as it’s quite an awkward shape/size. I initially thought it would be good for contouring but again I find it too stiff..I suppose you could maybe apply blusher with it using the side?? hmm. Not a fan, though it is still very soft I wish it was more versatile!
The last one (soft fibre) is this small flat topped brush, and when I say it’s head is small I’m not kidding, it’s just a smidge bigger than a 50p coin. It is actually my second favourite from this little e-bay stash because it is a DREAAAAAM to blend concealer out with. Again the bristles aren’t particularly dense, but they are more so than the stippling brush, and if you’re going for the Kim K highlight look this is perfect for under the eyes and in the triangle shape. I did try it with blusher, but I would recommend NOT going for that because it packs on product like no tomorrow and I was alarmed to see my maroon sleek blush shade gashed onto my cheek in such a harsh manner D: But for blending in cream and liquid products, it is amazing and I know I’ll be reaching for this fellow a lot!
SO all in all for £2 a pop (including P&P!) I think these are well worth checking out! I didn’t order a full set, but near enough! Again the ones I’m super impressed with are the second and third brushes in the photo from the second seller and I’m pleased to have the angled flat top from the first. The other two aren’t BAD brushes, but I could live without them in my brush collection. These brushes are all over eBay at the moment, and I’m sure they’re all manufactured from the same place so take your pick of colours because there is also a blue variety available which is a nice change from the gold, pink and purple!
I hope this post was somewhat useful to anyone thinking of buying these ‘dupes’. I obviously still recommend investing in Real Techniques because you can’t really get better in terms of shape, size and how dense the bristles are, however if a full RT kit is too pricy for your liking, or you simply need a great stippling brush for price you can’t even buy a bag of chips for these days then these are a fantastic option ^_^
