A Few Chikuhodo GSN Brushes

Friday, July 7, 2017

At the beginning of this year I ordered my first Chikuhodo fude and ended up buying a few more from the GSN series last month. I thought I would group my reviews of the four GSN brushes into one post.

I purchased these from CDJapan. The site carries a lot of makeup brushes, including brands that are otherwise hard to get your mitts on (living in North America, that is). Like usual, some pretty fast EMS shipping. I made my last order almost as soon as I landed back in the US and they arrived to my doorstep a few days after I did. I'm always pleased to received brush packages from CDJapan because it always feels like a wonderful present to yourself, the brushes are carefully gift wrapped and boxed.

For years I wasn't drawn to white handle and gold ferrules, but lately that color scheme has been doing it for me. A certain Mr. Tom Ford's makeup line probably has something to do with that. I like how long the white pearl handles are and how they taper to a point instead of a rounded end.

GSN-05 ($40) is a white goat hair brush meant for liquid foundation. I've had my eye on this for years and years, more than five years ago, when I started to really appreciate well made brushes. It's the sleekest white goat I have, but also contains the thickest hairs out of my collection and also the most yellow. I guess I won't be worried about staining these bristles with foundation because they already already are past creamy ivory and well into manila paper in terms of color. There are a few stragglers, the outer silhouette of this brush is more rough than I was expecting. It's not the best feeling on my skin, so I'm using it to blend out cream contour, not using it regularly for foundation.

GSN-08 ($32) is a large flat triangular eye brush. I've been wanting something this triangular for a long time! Maybe not quite this big. It covers about a third of my eyelid space. Despite the bigger than expected size, you only really work with the tip and that offers you control to deftly place shadow exactly where you wanted it it to go.

GSN-11 ($19) is a small rounded eyeliner brush. I use this one all the time. It's fantastic for defining and deepening lash lines, and for packing on concentrated color or glitter without it traveling all over the eyelid.

GSN-13 ($20) is a stiff brow brush with a precise cut. This might even be my favorite stiff brow brush, beating the incumbent, Smashbox #12. You get a fantastic amount of control of the bristles and they are short enough that pressing against skin doesn't make them splay apart.

I really like 75% of these brushes; the 08 eye brush, the 11 eyeliner brush, and the 13 brow brush. I'm reaching for them all the time and not just because they are new, I've had the 11 for six months now and I'm even more delighted with it now than when I first purchased it. The 05 cream foundation brush is not as precise as I would like and I think that's why I find it to be a little streaky with cream formulations. 08, 11, and 13 I use quite often, they have not shed and have stayed quite shapely through multiple washes.

You can purchase Chikuhodo GSN brushes at Beautylish (greater markup, but pretty low free shipping threshold) or from CDJapan for lower prices but higher shipping. I tend to go for CDJapan for sizable brush orders (they often have free brush shipping events, if you spend 15000 yen/~$130 and Beautylish for smaller purchases.

Have you tried any Chikuhodo brushes? I've reviewed a few from the Takumi range (here).

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