E.l.f. Haul (pt. 2) Makeup Brushes Review

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Yesterday, I went to General Dollar looking for some spray bottles (there's about 15 million uses for small spray bottles, I store practically every liquid I have in them) and found e.l.f. cosmetics there. I was pleased as punch (hey there, outdated colloquialisms) because I was going to order some of the brushes online for my sister anyways so I saved on shipping. I bought a large face brush, a bronzer/blush brush (it was packaged incorrectly in a eye blending brush package but says 'Bronzing Brush' on it), a small eyeshadow brush, a small eye defining brush. If you remember, previously I had ordered a mascara spoolie as well as a eyebrow brush/comb combo and found them to be very satisfactory.
Let's start out with the bad. When I opened the packaging, the brushes smelled simply awful. The bigger brushes (face and blush) were a weird maroon color- they've obviously been dyed and were all flattened (I fluffed them up for the pictures) .

I didn't want to wrap stinky brushes up and just send them to my sis, so I washed them with my homemade brush cleaner (see older post for recipe!). They immediately started to shed and bleed their dye when I lathered them up. I switched to cold water, and the water then ran clean. I placed them on a dish towel and the larger brushes actually bled on the towel. How attractive, I now have a dish towel that looks like I wiped a bloody knife on it. When they were halfway dry, I fluffed them up by gently tugging the hairs into the direction I wanted them to go. This actually worked great, I think I increased the face brush to 300% of it's original size. Also, I noticed that the hairs on all of the brushes were a little uneven, mostly on the larger brushes with more hairs.

What I really like about the e.l.f. brushes is that the eyeshadow brushes are of surprisingly good quality. They're soft and dense, though not as good as my Sephora or MAC brushes (I guess the appropriate sound here is 'duh!'). Though at a dollar each, I didn't have that high of expectations. They are a bit more flimsy- I put each brush to the test by trying to pull (lightly!) the metal band off where the handle meets the head of the brush. I succeeded, the eyeshadow brushes' head came right off. Don't worry, I glued it back together with Gorilla Glue, it's drying as I type and my sister will never know.
However, for people on a budget these are decent brushes and you just can't beat the price.
Cost: $1 a brush
Where: eyeslipsface.com or retailers such as General Dollar