Brush Drying Rack Comparisons

Monday, April 23, 2018

You know you have too many brushes when you have not one or two brush drying racks but three, four, and yet you still can't wash all of your brushes in one go. Over the past few years I've accumulated a few styles of brush holders to help me wash my brush hoard and have a clear preference over what I think is the best.

First up is my classic Benjabelle eye brush holder. My spouse bought this for me more than four years ago when we were dating, I've put on some serious mileage on this since then. It's not the most stable of devices (heck my larger one met its downfall when it cracked last week under the weight of my ebony brushes) but it was the OG. The silicone is a bit soft, so the brushes kind of stick out every which way. Sadly Benjabelle stopped making brush holders due to all the copycats out there.

I've seen this Danielle brush holder at Marshalls and the like, as well as Amazon. It's a lightweight plastic brush tree that uses neoprene to hold the brushes. It's the most easily tipped over of all the brushes and the only one that incorporates a tray at the bottom to catch any water drops. The packaging boasts that it is collapsible, but in my experience it is not easy broken down. I want to say that I bought it for $7/8 (Amazon has it for $15) but it definitely feels flimsy compared to the other holders.

The Brush Bar* is definitely the most clever of my brush holding contraptions, but the devil is in the details. I've had this for over six months and while it is very aesthetically pleasing, I find that brushes slide out of the Brush Bar rather easily. Gravity wins more often than you think. Last week I noticed one of the rubber tips coming loose and unfortunately between then and now, it was lost. The loss of just one tip makes me lose my mind just a tiny bit. I think an upcoming project will be to dip all the prongs with liquid rubber as a permanent fix.

I saved the best for last. This brush holder is made by a Chinese company, Docolor. I can see where the Benjabelle tree served as initial inspiration with the similar silicone prongs gripped between sheets of plastic. I'm on the fence . On one hand, I want to champion small businesses with great ideas, and the concept that Benjabelle came up with is undoubtedly unique. On the other hand, Docolor's product is just plain better and more consideration was given towards details.

The four corner design is a vast improvement over Benjabelle's two piece crossing center. It's so much more stable and seems like a higher quality product right out of the gate. The silicone is also much more stiff and as a result, holds the brushes at the angle you place them, they don't point all over the place or slip. I had issues with tiny detail brushes slipping out of the Benjabelle eye brush tree, but no such problems with the Docolor.

The only drawback to this holder is that because the posts screw into place (8 of them), I wouldn't really consider this a collapsible tree. To offset the fact that takes up space, this holder can be flipped over so that it stores brushes when they are dry. I also like that this holder has multiple sized holes. The cherry on the sundae for me is the price, the one pictured was only $14 inclusive of shipping (however I would need to buy multiples to replace my Benjabelles). I bought mine on Aliexpress.

Is this enough innovation that it can be considered a separate product in its own right? I'd feel a bit guilty supporting a knock off while the original company lost business, but the Docolor holder is so nice that I don't see it as a counterfeit.

*indicates a product that was sent to me for review. Other products were purchased by me. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.