Real Techniques Expert Face Brush

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

I picked up a Real Techniques Expert Face Brush this week for a friend and realized after browsing through my posts that I had never posted a review on my blog for when I bought mine (story of my life). Despite being called a face brush and "for application and blending of cream or liquid foundation", the shape and size of this brush make it a better blush brush for me, and that's how I'll be reviewing it.

This brush has a elongated aluminum ferrule, with a slightly tapered rubberized base. It's very light weight wise, I actually prefer a bit of a heft to my brushes.

I remember the thing that surprised me the most when I initially purchased this was it wasn't as silky as I expected it to be. The shape and staggered positioning of the synthetic bristles mimic natural hairs, but this sort of uneven cut leaves the brush feeling not as soft as other synthetic brushes (such as Ecotools, the synthetic HD line at Walmart, etc) and actually rougher than a few of my goat bristled brushes. However, because it is synthetic it is really easy to clean and dries very quickly. When I flick it vigorously and pat it dry with a towel, it'll be completely dry in two hours.

It works well, for certain things. The bristles are pretty resilient, offering good control to the user. I find that it sort of sheers out blushes, which is great if you're working with scary pigmented brushes or like to build up blushes with medium pigmentation but not idea for already sheer blushes (when used with NARS Deep Throat, it sheers it out to the point where I can't see it anymore). It's also pretty good for use with cream or liquid blushes.

This is a comparison between a blush brush made of natural hairs roughly the same size, the Real Techniques Expert Face Brush and a duo fiber brush, all using roughly the same amount of pressure. The natural bristles grab the most product and the duo fiber grab the least, leaving the synthetic Expert Face Brush somewhere in between. The brush does blend the blush out quite well.

Bottom line: it's a good beginner brush. The Real Techniques Expert Face Brush is very cheap at $8.99 (particularly if you catch it on sale or use coupons at Ulta), quite dense and is a good work horse. It does however have limitations and you might find that you might outgrow this brush as your makeup needs change. I don't reach for this brush often as I find myself preferring other tools, so more than likely my sister will inherit this brush.

Have you tried any Real Techniques brushes? What did you think?

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