Among all beauty lovers and enthusiasts, Real Techniques brushes are iconic for their quality and design; possibly labelling them the best brand on the High street.
To many, these brushes when brought separately can appear both extravagant and pricey and so with the opportunity to purchase the whole collection in bulk on eBay at a much cheaper price, its no wonder that this set consisting of 22 brushes, from which 12 are typically designed for the face and 10 are ideally used for the eyes, are such a huge staple in our current collection.
In relation to the sheer size of this collection, we have chosen 7 of our favourites in which to review;
Powder brush: This being the largest of the face brushes, is ideal for ensuring a light dusting of powder across the face to ensure lasting power of your foundation and preventing shine in the T-zone. This soft-bristled brush is great for covering your entire face in minimal time, distributing the powder evenly without a 'cakey' look being the end result. Although this brush is great for large areas of the face such as the cheeks, due to its size it makes under-eye powdering tricky; thus a smaller brush is recommended for the under-eye area. ('Setting brush')
Buffing brush: As quite obviously stated by the name, the sole purpose of this brush is to ensure, typically, a cream or liquid based product of some sort, whether this be a cream blush or a foundation, has been sufficiently buffed into the skin. Specifically, after using the essential foundation brush to distribute the foundation evenly around the face, I then use this brush to directly 'buff' the foundation seamlessly into the skin using circular motions to make sure the product is no longer just 'sitting' on top of the skin and rather, is blended in to appear natural and effortless. The densely packed fibres of the brush allow you to cover all the hard to reach areas of the face, whilst controlling the finish; you can easily manipulate the coverage by buffing the foundation out for a sheer, minimal, natural base or, layering the product up more and blending out for an supposed 'airbrushed' cover.
Expert face brush: This is a much smaller, round-topped, oval brush which is perfect for both concealer and foundation. Due to its much smaller size you can cover all the small crevices within the face seamlessly. I also use this to apply my foundation as its smaller size means you can really manipulate the coverage; although, it does take longer applying foundation with this brush and the 'buffed in' finish isn't necessarily achieved, it does ensure an even, smooth base.
Multi-task brush: This brush, as stated by the name, can be used for a variety of things in particular bronzer and even when applying powder. For me specifically, I use this brush in order to bronze the face, adding dimension and to some extent, natural shadows in order to make the cheek bones more prominent before contouring with a small angled brush. The structure to the bristles of this brush mean its quite 'fan' like, with a wide tip that enables you to achieve a natural, even, sun-kissed tan effect on your face.
Setting brush: The 'setting brush' is designed particularly for setting powder under the eye, to prevent creasing of the foundation. Although, this step is not always necessary in your makeup routine it helps to pro-long your base keeping everything in place. This brush has a soft-bristled, pointed tip perfect for distributing your chosen powder evenly without picking up too much product which could lead to your foundation looking 'cakey' or too 'powdery' looking.
Domed shadow brush:This brush is ideal for sweeping your eye shadow across the entire lid in a few small strokes. The 'domed shadow brush' is quite large for the eyes, so although it enables quick shadow application it can look rather messy if done quickly. However, because the bristles are so densely packed together I often use it too blend out my eye shadow so the edges look seamless, which this brush does perfectly.
Base shadow brush: An ideal brush for crease and outer corner eye shadow blending work as the pointed tip makes it effortlessly easy to get into the finer edges of the eye; it can also be used for under the eye if it is done precisely. This brush is so versatile that I often use this to hide blemishes and spots on the face with a good coverage concealer.