This is my guideline of brushes I feel that essentially every woman and/or makeup wearer needs to own! And this is what I consider the bare minimum!
The MAC 187
Great for foundation, gives you that nice airbrush finish that we’re all dying to have and it blends your liquid foundations like a dream. Nobody likes a frosting face!
A brow brush
I don’t have a particular favorite, the one I currently own is a tow-up Sonia Kashuk brush that I’ve owned for like 5 years that I refuse to replace for some odd reason LOL
ANYTHING from the E.L.F. Professional Line!!
Okay if you’ve ever seen E.L.F. (Eyes Lips Face) in a local drugstore or like a Target you may know that they’ve got several different options for their brushes. They’ve got their standard line, that has the white handles, and their professional line with the black handles. Okay, the brushes with the white labels SUCK. Save your $3 on those. But the brushes with the black handles are THE shiznit! Now granted they’re definitely not professional quality, and will not last you very long. The ferrels get detached from the bristles quite easily after cleaning them. But for THREE DOLLARS, and sometimes when they have sales you can get them as cheap at $1 each, can you really afford to complain? lol What I love most about their brushes is they’re sooooo soft, I think they’re amazing for a drugstore product and although they might not last you years and years, they’re still a great product! Especially those on a tight budget.
A large powder brush, a concealer brush, and small powder brush.
All of these you can find from the E.L.F. line and they are actually pretty awesome. The large powder brush so that you can apply sheer wash of face powders, the concealer for, well, concealer lol and the small powder brush for more intense color, such as applying blush.
Sigma E35 or any eyeshadow blending brush
This one is literally a MUST HAVE for eyeshadow! The Sigma E35, most comparable to the MAC 222 brush, has tightly packed bristles. This will allow more intense distribution of color yet will still allow you to blend well.
MAC 224 Brush
It’s quite like the Sigma E35 brush mentioned above except not as dense; the bristles are loose which allows for a sheer wash of color or when you might have over applied an eyeshadow in your crease and need something to tone it down with and blend some of the color out. This brush also works amazingly well with blending out concealer under the eyes. (the Pixiwoo gals taught me that one)
Sigma E55 or the MAC 239
Both brushes are quite similar in that they are designed for the application of eyeshadow on the eyelids. All that blending you’ll be doing in your crease is great but you’ll need something to be able to really pick up the color, grab it, and then press onto your eyelids and actually have the color show up. These brushes will do that for you.
An eyeliner brush
This one can either be a straight pointed tip, or an angled brush. If you’re on a budget you may want to consider just sticking with an angled brush, reason being is that is also doubles as a brow shading brush. Get more bang fo yo buck!
Other tools and things lest we not forget!
- Latex Sponges – never underestimate the power of these things! They’re old school but let me tell you, they work wonders…
- Beauty Blender Sponge – this one is like the new version of the old school latex sponges but better. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still good to have both. There is things the beauty blender really can’t do (like under eye area) but they blend foundations BETTER (yes I said it) much much better than brushes!
- Powder poofs – those old things you used to play in whenever you’d dig into your moms makeup bag when you were a kid. Yea, turns out those things are incredible for applying loose and pressed powder products when you want a flawless finish.
And tada! That’s it! Those are my essentials and starters. What are your favorites?
