I have to admit that I'm not someone who gets overly excited about make-up brushes. I don't think they offer the same excitement as, say, buying a new lip colour. I've mentioned once or twice that one of my make-up goals this year is to have more colours on stand by for fancy dress or cosplay purposes. I decided to extend this to make-up brushes encase a certain costume required intricate eye make-up that can't be done using fingers!
The picture above is my current collection of cruelty-free brushes made with synthetic hair. As you can see it's not huge and so far it consists of large brushes for powders which are pretty difficult to apply with your fingers. I've decided to get brushes similar to each other so I don't have to spend too much time cleaning brushes between using them for different colours of powders.
Going from left to right (when looking at the photo!) we have the Furless Stippling brush first which I received in a Vegan Kind beauty box. This brush is the softest out of all of them, and is probably the most 'professional' one I have. Stippling - when done correctly - can create a beautifully smooth base. I personally don't have time to stipple my foundation in the morning, however I use this brush to get a flawless base when I'm going somewhere nice in the evening.
Second up I have two foundation brushes from Real Techniqiues. Real Techniques get a lot of support from the blogging community, however my desire to rave about them is limited. I know a lot of people who say not to use foundation brushes as they can make your make-up look streaky, and that's what very much happened here. I'd take using my fingers over this. I also bought the Expert Face Brush which was definitely a bit better, though I find it much better for buffing in my make-up rather than applying it. Decent but not rave-worthy.
Third up in the picture is the Barry M Powder Brush which I have been loving! There's not much you can say about a powder brush really, but this is very soft and I find it helps me apply my face powder evenly across my face.
The final three brushes are from Eco Tools which I bought off Lizzie in one of her blog sales. Whilst the Barry M powder brush is definitely my favourite, the powder brush from Eco Tools is definitely a close second. I've also been loving having a concealer brush as it does make the process easier. Using a brush instead of your finger for concealer makes it easier to get right into the corners of the face - such as the lash line. The final brush is a standard eye shadow brush, which isn't any more exciting than any other brush but eyeshadow brushes are a type of brush which are handy to have a good number of. The Eco Tools brushes are super soft and I'm looking forward to buying more in the future.
What are your favourite cruelty-free make-up brushes? Which ones should I add to my collection?
