Makeup Brush and Tool Collection

I thought it was about time that I shared with you my favourite makeup brushes of the moment, I have a lot of makeup brushes and tools, some I use every day, some that can be used to apply virtually every product and some which I couldn’t live without. So without boring you with every single brush that I have I thought that I would pick out some of my favourites to tell you about in case you are in the market for a particular brush or just want to try something new.

Clean Your Makeup Brushes

When it gets close to Christmas I start cleaning and organising EVERYTHING. As a kid I would spend weeks going through all my old toys, putting them into charity bags and making room for all the new ones that Santa was going to bring me. I think that has probably stuck with me for my whole life, and now with a few weeks to go I’m starting to get rid of old clothes, bags and shoes. This year I’ve asked Santa for some more Real Technique makeup brushes, the blush brush and the core collection to be precise – which I am veryyyy excited about. But this means that I need to clean my current brushes, find a new (bigger) home for them and sadly throw away my over loved ones.

I’ve been hunting for a new makeup brush holder for weeks – it’s a very serious commitment. And I’ve found lots of pretty ones and lots of big ones, but sadly none nice enough and big enough for me to buy. I chatted to my boyfriend and asked him if he would be able to make me one (he works in the metal industry), eventually he agreed, I’ve sent him measurements for 3 different size pots and I’m waiting patiently for them to be finished.

Now on to cleaning! I HATE cleaning my brushes. It makes me so nervous that I’m going to destroy them, so I’m constantly trying to find a new, convenient way to clean them that doesn’t mean I totally wreck the glue. And I think I’ve finally found it. (I lost a few bristles from my 17 bronzer brush, but let’s not mention that).

I was looking through Amazon and saw some Strictly Professional Cosmetic Brush Cleaner and decided to give it a go. It was only a couple of pound plus postage and thought that I may as well give it a go. It’s like an oily solution, that you stand your brushes in for 15 minutes then rinse with warm water. I decided to just use a normal bowl and used about a third of the bottle, but this cleaned all of my brushes. After the 15 minutes the liquid had all been absorbed into the brushes. Then when you rinse it the makeup just comes straight off, however the oil needs a few rinses before it’s completely gone. But it works  SO well. I rinsed them through once, left them out for a little while on a piece of tissue, then rinsed through again. The oil left them clean and really soft, they also smell lovely. However my bathroom sink was a little more difficult to clean after all that foundation!

How do you clean your makeup brushes?

Beauty Beam

I’ve recently tried out the Beauty Beam. Now this cute little devise is a small light that you can put onto your beauty tools in order to enhance your view of what you’re doing. A few years ago I tried a pair of tweezers that had a light fixed on to it. This made the tweezers really chunky and quite hard to use and most of all, once you started moving your hand and wrist around, swapping between eyes, you started blocking out the light, but the Beauty Beam is SOOO different.

It has a little elastic band around the back of the light, which means that you can move it between different tools, move it to different distances along the tool and more importantly also move it around the circumference. This means that you can adjust were the light sits depending on which way your hand is.

It comes in a variety of different colours and costs JUST £4.99. It’s fantastic. It fits on lip brushes, eye shadow brushes and even face brushes, because the band is so stretchy. You can put it on lip sticks and glosses, eye liners and eyebrow pencils and tweezers. I found that in the middle of the day, it doesn’t make a huge difference. But at night when you’re getting ready to go out to a bar or club, it’s a massive help, especially when applying false eye lashes!! I get up for work at 6am, so with these dark winter mornings it’s a great product to use. It’s also really good for plucking your eyebrows –there’s nothing worse than stepping into good light and noticing how bad your eyebrows are – you can see all the fine hairs that you sometimes miss.

This is a fantastic product, really works and is so easy to pop in your make up bag or hand bag and can be carried with you on the go. It’s light weight, easy to use and looks really cute. It also comes with a battery, which is great, so you can use it straight away.

On sale at yourbeauty247.com and amazon.

Have you tried the Beauty Beam, what did you think?

Miss Photogenic MakeUp Brushes

I know some people get set in their ways when it comes to make up brushes, only using the same ones, or from one or two particular brands, and I know you may think this is a case of ‘if it ain’t broke then why fix it?’ but sometimes you can miss out on some really great products because you are hesitant to try something new.

Recently I became the proud owner of 3 Miss Photogenic makeup brushes, there are 10 in their range. 5 for face, 4 for eyes and 1 for lips. They come in a range of synthetic, goat hair, pony hair or rubber (the term ‘goat hair’ put me off slightly too, but keep reading!) I received a Foundation Brush, Colour Diffuser and an Eye Crease Brush.

Now let me start by chatting a little bit about the packaging. I don’t know about you – but I love it. It looks so luxurious and gives the feel of high quality brushes before you’ve even opened the box. All packaging is really easy to get into, no scissors needed which is a bonus. Each brush is black with gold on them, with a small logo and the brush name – very minimal and very classy! Absolutely love how they look. Now onto what you really care about – do they work?

I’ll start off with the foundation brush, this retails at £15. It’s a synthetic brush but it is super soft. It feels really sturdy, not like some brushes that feel like all the bristles are going to start falling out as soon as you start using it. The brush bristles are shaped in a zig zag, this is to aid application so that liquid is evenly distributed, which helps to ensure it’s not applied too thickly. Now my first thought when I saw this brush was that it was going to leave streaks and brush marks all over my face and I was going to have to go over it with a buffing brush, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It works like a dream, it really does keep your foundation thin and even, no brush marks at all! Gives a really gorgeous finish.

Next the Colour Diffuser Brush, retailing at £15. This brush is synthetic and can be used for buffing and blending colour, and can be used on liquid, cream or powder.  I tried this out, and it definitely works equally well on liquid, powder and creams. Creams need a little more buffing, but that’s just the nature of creams. It’s very soft and it feels very light, it’s great for buffing in blusher and great at contouring to give a seamless finish.

And finally the Eye Crease Brush also made from goat hair and retails at £9. This is my favourite! It’s super soft and fabulous quality. It’s great for applying mid-tone and darker shades and blending them out. This is the perfect tool for a smokey eye! It adds a lot of depth to your eye shadow. It’s also great for nude and golden eye shadows to give a more natural blend. Amazing brush!

Totally underrated brand and for such a great price, you can’t complain. You need to try them out, would make great tools for Christmas party makeup, or would make amazing stocking fillers. You can buy them from John Lewis or on http://www.missphotogeniconline.com/shop/beauty

Let me know if you’ve tried any of the other Miss Photogenic makeup brushes and tell me what you thought.