Right, so that's all of them- eleven in total. Each set retails at £21.99 (although I got one of them half price), the stippling brush was £11.99, and the blush brush retails at £9.99 (on offer for £5). My rusty maths skills tell me that I spent a total of £49.98 with free delivery. At full price the brushes would have cost £65.98, so I saved a grand total of £15.98. I think the Real Techniques brushes are great value. Although parting with £50 is a little bit painful, you've got to remember that high-end brushes like Mac cost between £20 and £40 each, and I don't think their quality is one bit superior to these little gems.
For a bit of background info, this line of brushes was created by Samantha Chapman who is a YouTube vlogger and a fantastic make up artist. Her YouTube channel (Pixiwoo) is well worth a look if you're not familiar with it, as she uses the Real Techniques brushes in all her tutorials.
I've got so many good things to say about these brushes, even though they've only been in my collection for two days. However, I HATE the design. The brush handles are made with aluminium with a black grip so they're light weight and tactile. Yeah, I get where Sam was coming from on this, but I just think they're a bit ugly. Each type of brush has a corresponding handle colour: the yellow brushes are from the "flawless base" range, the purple are "enhanced eyes", and the pink are used for a "perfect finish. Clever idea, but not well executed. Besides, the website maintains that each brush is multipurpose (which is definitely true) so why limit then with colour coding?! Sexy sleek black ones would be preferable, but I'm over it when the brushes are so damn good!
Oh, I should probably mention that all the brushes are made of the same Taklon duo fibre bristles. This means that they're super soft, fast drying and 100% cruelty free- ideal for a vegetarian with a guilty conscience like me!
That's enough rambling- let's get onto the first set of brushes: "The Core Collection."
Presented in a clever case-come-stand, this range is comprised of "flawless base" brushes and I absolutely love it. From left to right, we have the contour brush, pointed foundation brush, detailer brush and buffing brush.
- The contour brush is perfect! It's small, but an ideal size for getting into the hollows of my cheeks. It's dense enough to pack on colour, yet still being really good for blending.
- As for the foundation brush, I like it, but I would never use it to apply foundation. It's tiny! It would take about six months to do my whole face using that thing. However, anyone who read my previous post about the Superdrug concealer brush will know that I like big brushes for that purpose; and this is ideal. It's a little bit scratchy, but works really well to flawlessly hide dark circles.
- The brush intended for concealer- the detailer brush- is a bit too small for my taste, but I really like it as a lip brush.
- The buffing brush is absolutely gorgeous! it's the perfect size and creates and amazing HD finish when used with a bit of powder (Mac MSFN all the way!)
Next up: "The Starter Set"...
- The deluxe crease brush is lovely and dense with a domed shape. It's really soft and fluffy, but quite big so not ideal for detail work. Fantastic for diffuse, subtle looks though.
- The base shadow brush is fairly self explanatory. Perfect size, nice and soft. What more could you want?
- I was skeptical when I first received the accent brush. It's sooo small! What use could it possibly be? Turns out, it's great for smudging powder along the lash line for a really smokey look. Love it.
- The eyeliner brush is the only brush from this range I really do not like. It's too thick for liner, and I prefer an angled brush like the Mac 263, or the even the cheaper Eco Tools version.
- The brow brush is lovely, but a little bit thick. I don't have very big eyebrows so it tend to apply more heavily than I want. It's so soft and high quality that I'm sure I'll find another use for it.
I am aware that Real Techniques also makes a brush set called "Travel Essentials", but I didn't buy that one because it contains three brushes, two of which come in the other sets. However, I bought two of the individual brushes (not available in sets).
Unlike the other brushes, these have flat bases so they stand up. I don't understand this at all! It's not conducive to good storage because they're so easy to knock over when left standing, and too thick to put comfortably in a brush jar with limited space. Saying this, they're fantastic brushes, and probably my favourite out of everything I purchased.
- The blush brush is so damn fluffy! It's a little bit tapered, and something about it makes it amazing at picking up lots of colour and dispersing it evenly over the cheeks. It's quite big, so can double up as an all over powder brush.
- The stippling brush was a lot smaller than I was expecting. It's so so dense though, so really puts the Elf version to shame. It takes a little while to do your foundation with it because of the size, but it's totally worth the effort because it creates the most beautiful finish you could imagine.
Overall, I'm going to give Samantha Chapman's Real Techniques Brushes a solid 7.5/10. Amazing quality, good price, but they're not as pretty as I'd like and I think some of them aren't well considered as far as size goes. If you want a bit more information here's the website:
http://realtechniques.com/
Rach
xx
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