Having a ton of makeup is fine and well, but without the appropriate tools, you’ll struggle to create the looks you want. Today I wanted to chat about my most used brushes. These are the brushes I reach for every day, the brushes I travel with, and the brushes I have to have in my collection. Sure, I have a lot of other brushes I like and am glad I have, but I don’t necessarily reach for them constantly.
I remember when I was first getting into makeup, I’d use cheap brush sets that were scratchy and shed worse than a golden retriever. And the variety was slim–I had one eye brush, one for my face, and maybe some random eyebrow tools I never used. While I still use most brushes in a multi-use way, I’ve definitely found certain brushes I like to use to achieve certain things.
For The Face
Wet ‘n Wild Powder Brush: When I’m not applying powder with my beauty sponge, I’m using this powder brush. Not only is it adorable with it’s pink, cool girl tips, it’s satisfyingly soft. Something large and fluffy like this is great for dusting powders over you skin. The only place I really seriously set my makeup is under my eyes. For that, I tend to use my sponge. But for a quick layer of setting powder all over the skin, this is great.
$2.99 , walgreens.com
Real Techniques Setting Brush: I use this exclusively for highlighting. Highlight is such a light color, and if I were to use this for anything else, it’d pick up the dark color and I wouldn’t have the same effect until I washed it. And that is lame. So this is for highlight alone. It’s small, so I get a precise placement, but it’s fluffy enough that it’s not too precise. I am still able to effortlessly blend out my highlight so it isn’t too stark with this.
$8 , target.com
Real Techniques 300 Tapered Blush Brush: Firstly, I’m obsessed with this line of Real Techniques brushes. They look high-end and feel luxurious on the skin. I have a pretty small head, and so my face is kind of small too. I find a lot of powder brushes are way too big for my face. And I can’t get the brush placed exactly where I want. Cue, this tapered blush brush. It’s small and dense and allows me to place blush where I want to. But it’s soft enough it blends out easily and doesn’t look too harsh.
$19 , target.com
Sephora Mini Pro Flawless Airbrush #56.5: I LOVE Sephora’s Pro brush line. They’re a little pricey, but the brushes I have in this line are really nice quality. I purchased the Pro Flawless Airbrush years ago for foundation, and now I use it for foundation, powder, blush, bronzer. It’s my go-to. But recently (within the past 6 months or so), I’ve been obsessed with using this mini size for concealer. It’s a little shorter and a little more dense than its full size counterpart, so it pushes concealer into the skin well without it looking cakey.
$20 , sephora.com
Hourglass Vanish Foundation Brush: So this is stupid expensive. But I do love it. I bought this when I bought the Vanish foundation stick–because I hadn’t ever used a foundation stick before. I thought I might want to purchase the complementing brush. I’m glad I did. It’s so soft; it feels like micro-fiber on your face. Its slight slant and density makes this perfect for buffing foundation into the skin with an airbrushed finish. I will say, I like this best with creams and thicker liquids.
$46 , sephora.com
For The Eyes
Morphe M441 Pro Firm Blending Crease Brush: This brush is pretty new to my collection, but it’s quickly become a staple. It’s bigger than most blending brushes I own which makes it perfect for diffusing color into my crease. I predominately use this for applying my transition shade and actual blending shadows together. I also find it’s great for no makeup makeup days. I can grab a bronzer or eye shadow and sweep it all across my eye, into the crease with this brush.
$6 , ulta.com
Mac 217 Synthetic Blending Brush: There are some things that are cult-classics for a reason. This is one of them. It’s a little smaller than the M441 I just spoke about. But that makes it good for applying targeted crease shades. This is what I use when I want to deepen the crease without diffusing it out too much. It’s also a good size for me to do general outercorner shadow action.
$24 , nordstrom.com
Sonia Kashuk Petite Smudge Makeup Brush: So…I couldn’t find the exact brush I have (because it was a set they don’t have anymore), but I did find one pretty darn similar, which is what’s linked below. I like this loose, tapered style pencil brush. It’s not as dense as some other pencil brushes, so it’s better for blending out shadows rather than meticulously applying it. I use this most under my bottom lash line. I don’t like the way harsh shadow looks under my eyes, so I prefer to use this, which softens it a bit. It’s also great for smudging out liner.
$11 , target.com
Real Techniques Shading Brush: The last brush I have for you today is this shading brush from Real Techniques. I like this so much, I have 3 of them. It’s short, pretty dense, and has a dome shape. I find this is perfect for inner corner and brow bone highlight. It’s the perfect shape to get in there and apply a concentrated amount of shadow. I’ve also used this to place shadow on my lid when doing looks like halo eyes, and it works well for that as well.
$7.21 , amazon.com
What are your most used brushes?
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