rephr Brushes

Saturday, March 9, 2019

At the beginning of the year I ordered a few brushes from the Canadian brand rephr, after seeing a few Instagram accounts mention the Canadian brand of Kumano made brushes. I loved the way they looked with their black on black scheme and I'm a sucker for white goat, in no time at all I had purchased four brushes from the brand.

A play on the word "refer", rephr is a brand whose white goat brushes are made in Japan. Their business model relies heavily on reviews to give input on their brushes. After going live in the later part of 2018, their line up brushes currently features seven white goat bristled brushes and a subfamily of prototypes.

These brushes are begging to be compared to Chikuhodo's Takumi series. Rephr has a leg up over Chikuhodo, these brushes are everything I wanted the T-series to be! The handles are longer, I like it when a brush is long enough that I can lean the end of it against the crook of my thumb. This gives me a greater sense of balance and control over the head of the brush, no matter which size. The Chikuhodo Takumi brushes always felt a little lacking in length and weight, rephr brushes feel fantastic in the hand. The bristles in rephr's lineup are also much more densely packed exiting the ferrule. The quality of the hairs is nearly identical - both feature supple white goat hairs that are uniform, perform well, and clean easily.

05, $56. The brush I own that's closest to rephr's 05 (center) is my ShouShouLang X03 (left), a limited edition flat paddle with ebony handle. It's a bit flatter and denser. The Energy Carnelian white goat (right) highlight blush is airier and slightly rounder.

Multipurpose brush. I like using this this brush for blush and powder foundation. I like it when it dries unencumbered but is stored in a brush guard, this gives it a nice compactness (but not too squished).

Prototype 07. I have a lot of rounded brushes (I even wrote a post comparing them all) but known are quite as flat across the top as 07. For me, the largeness of the tip of the brush was not as easy to work with when you have less real estate in the eye region. There's a new family of prototypes that are in the 07 family that have more tapered tips, I think those shapes are a little more familiar to me. Top is rephr 07, middle is Sonia G. Crease Two, bottom is Chikuhodo Z-11.

Left to right: very old MAC 217, Sonia G. Worker Three, rephr 01, Chikuhodo Takumi T-7, ShouShouLang M05

01, $24. The classic blending shape, done right. The Sonia G. has finer hairs and is more dense, the Takumi is more simultaneously airier yet flatter. There's just no criticism to be had here, 01 is a very agreeable brush and its shape belongs in every brush collection.

02, $24. Would you believe that I didn't have any other brushes to which to compare brush 02? While I have a few mops, none are close to this size, at least not anymore. I like that it's not as wide or large as my other curved paddle brushes, it works great for eye that have less surface area on the mobile eyelid.

The softness of rephr's white goat is great. It's not as soft as Hakuhodo, Sonia G., or Tom Ford, but it is finer than all my Energy and Koyudo goat. Against Shou Shou Lang, it's harder to say because there's so much variation across all their different series of brushes. I would say that rephr is not as silken as the SSL X series, but superior by a smidge to the white goat in the red metallic 2017 Holiday brushes. The

The way the company operates is a little unusual. Instead of purchasing brushes outright, I bought three of them at 50% off and received 07 free as a prototype. Rephr offers their brushes at a steep discount if you agree to review them (but I think the 50% is for the first time only). In order to access the brushes, you'll need a referral link (here's mine, no affiliate compensation).

I actually had a hiccup with my order which was great, it gave me a shot to see what the customer service side of things is like. Folks, the service at rephr is stellar. Within an hour of my email, my issue was addressed and it was resolved. Tom from rephr also reached out to me via IG while my order was on the way and afterwards to make sure my satisfaction was complete. And it is!

I think these brushes can command their full price, but I can't deny that I was absolutely thrilled to pick them up at 50% off. The one regret I have is not going for the full set of brushes, I wish I would have ordered them all.

Edit 11/19: Brush 02's ferrule popped off entirely. I glued it back on, but I'm still not a fan of un-crimped ferrrules.

Rephr brushes can be purchased directly from their website.

Have you heard of rephr brushes yet? What do you think of how they look and their business strategy?

Products featured was purchased by me. Links featured do not compensate me in any way, and are for the sole purpose of sharing products.