Monday, August 19, 2013

Current Most Regularly Used Brushes: August 2013

This is not all of my brushes, it isn't even all of the brushes I have used this month, but these are my most regularly used brushes because I am one of these people who, once I have something I know works, even if I eventually get something that is better, will keep using what I know originally worked, until it falls apart.  I am sure that is a run-on sentence but I was terrible at grammar in school because they could never make sentences that made sense to me when they were trying to explain sentence structure.

I have been meaning to post this for a while, I mean these pictures were taken in late April and that was after I had thought about doing this for a while so sometimes it takes me a long time to figure out how to write something I want to write.  My plan is to try and show these in the order I would actually apply my makeup, at least at the moment, this order could change at any time.





My basic e.l.f. brow comb & brush only has one use, to brush out my eye brows, even if they don't look unruly.  I tried at one point to use the comb to comb out eye lashes after mascara, but it never really seemed to actually do anything for the lashes and I shortly found a better method that helps prevent clumps in the first place.



This is my e.l.f. liner brush and I use it to fill in my eyebrows and I love it.  It is thin enough to fill in the brows well and it never seems to pick up more product than I need to fill in one brow, but always enough to fill in that one brow.




These are my e.l.f. eyeshadow brushes, also known as flat shader brushed because you can either get eye shadow just on the tip of the brush for a very light application or you can get eye shadow on the side of the brush for a more patting, heavier, application.  I keep two at my dressing table and one at the sofa where I keep my I can't leave the sofa but I still want to be able to do something makeup.  I like having two at the dressing table because even though I always apply eye shadow from the lightest to the darkest shade, sometimes you can have two very different colors that are similar in darkness and if you used the same brush without cleaning it can cause the colors to get muddied together if they are not supposed to be overlapping, and sometimes even if they are.




I have three crease brushes, two from e.l.f. and one from Target's up&up brand.  I generally don't use these for applying the eye shadow, only for blending the eye shadow.  Even though I have three now I seem to always mess them up a bit after they have been cleaned so the less I have to clean eye shadow out of them the better.



My e.l.f. concealer brush was only used for concealer once and never again because I don't typically get blemishes on my face, just dark under eye circles from poor nights of sleep and the redness on my face from being pale and having thin skin.  What I love this for though is cream/gel eye liner.  So far cream eye liners are the only type I have never made a mistake with and I attribute at least some of that success to this brush.  It is very thin and it is very easy for me to control when I can close my fingers around it and I really do love this brush.



I have two foundation brushes from e.l.f. that most never get used.  I will occasionally use one with my concealer if I only need a light coverage that day, but recently I have been needing a lot more so these have barely been touched for the last few weeks.



My foundation sponge from a brand sold at CVS.  I don't remember the brand and I no longer have the packaging.  My husband bought this for me because I had mentioned that I would like to try one of the knock-off beauty blenders before even considering actually buying a beauty blender, just to see if it changed the look of the foundation at all.  So far I have not seen much of a change, but I haven't looked at it closely enough to be sure.



This is my e.l.f. flawless face brush and it likes to get tangled on itself.  Whenever I clean it, whether spot cleaning or deep cleaning, it gets tangled.  I think the brush does just fine at applying my powder, I just wish it didn't tangle.  But anyway, this is what I use to apply the mineral foundations I have been working my way through or any other pressed powder I may decide to use from time to time.



This little brush came with the e.l.f. Healthy Glow Shimmer Powder in Golden Glow and I use it more to buff out stuff that maybe got applied too heavily than to actually apply powder because I find that when I use this to apply anything it goes on too heavily.  Odd for such a little brush.



These are my contouring brushes.  The black handled one is for the bronzer and came from a kit my husband's parents got me that I no longer remember the brand for, but this is actually my favorite thing from the kit and it wasn't even a brush kit.  The red handled one is from my mom and came from a craft store when I told her paint brushes could be used as makeup brushes if they were soft enough.  I use the red handled one for highlighter, although occasionally I will use it to contour my nose if I am feeling the need to be really precise about it.



This is my blush brush and it came from Daiso.  I love Daiso, so much stuff for so little money.  I can't say this is the best blush brush I have ever used and there is a new one that I have been testing that will probably end up pushing this one out by the end of the year, but since it will probably be the end of the year before it gets pushed out I am still including it in this list.




This is how I keep my eye lashes from clumping when I use mascara.  I brush through them before I apply the mascara or curl my lashes with this e.l.f. eyelash and brow wand.  I know it seems strange to brush your lashes before the mascara, but my lashes naturally criss cross which means they clump even with non-clumping mascaras because they just really want to be next to each other.  So I find that when I brush through them with this spoolie before I do anything else and then curl, I don't get the clumping problem with any of the mascaras I have used so far.



This eye lash curler is from Essential Beauty, which was found at a Burlington Coat Factory and was the only reason I bought the kit it came in.  My previous eye lash curler would rip out my eye lashes and made my eye lid hurt so much I could only use it twice a week and not in a row.  So far this one only seems to catch my lashes wrong about once a week when I use mascara every day so I consider that to be much improved.



These are my two lip brushes and at least one of them is from e.l.f., I am not sure where the other one is from.  I like having two because I always want to wash lip brushes right after using them and so one is generally drying while the other is being used.  I can't say I use them all of the time, but when I do they work fine.

I do spot clean my brushes every day with siege brush cleaner after use and I deep clean them once a week with Johnson and Johnson's Baby Shampoo.

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