My Favorite Brushes and How I Use Them

This post is going to be all about brushes. I recently talked makeup with my friend Sonya and she gave me the idea for a brush post and their function. So instead of going through all the ones I had, I picked the ones I use everyday to get any look I want.

These two brushes are for foundation and concealing.

The top two pictures are Sigma F80 Flat Top Kabuki. This is my favorite brush for foundation. Hands down. I've tried other flat tops but this one is the best so far. The bristles are short to wear they don't move on you when you apply pressure so you don't have as much build up. It's also dense to wear you don't soak up a ton of foundational on your brush.

The bottom two are a tapered kabuki. This specific one is from RC brushes off Amazon. Sigma also sells them. You can use this for foundation but I prefer to use it with concealer. The tapered edge helps you get into the curves of the face and blend more smoothly.

These next face brushes are from different companies. You can find good things in every line you just have to be willing to look.

The top left is a duo fiber powder brush BRCS26 from Coastal Scents. I use this for applying powder highlighter and also setting my concealer under the eyes. The reason I like it is because the bristles are not so tightly packed that it will disrupt your foundation and concealer when you use it. It's light and easy to dust product on.

The top right is a Sephora small domed contour brush. This is what I use the most for contouring. Where it's small it helps hollow out your cheekbone and doesn't let the color get too far down or up it keeps it in a small area.

The bottom left is an angled blush brush from Sigma (f40). This is another really light brush. It's best used with super pigmented blushes. If you have a blush that's more sheer or doesn't apply easy then you would want to use a more dense angled brush than this one. The MAC angled blush brush is a little more sense than this one I think.

The bottom right is a flat top kabuki from Coastal Scent (BR-110). While you can use this for foundation too I really like using it to apply face powder. It's ridiculously soft and again you just pat it on the face instead of swiping or rubbing.

These next two are eye brushes. More specifically for placing color and pigments on the lid.

Top two pictures are a flat small rounded Coastal Scents eye brush (BR-C-S12). I use this to apply pigments especially. It's synthetic so you don't lose product on it and works best with transferring color to the lid. When using it you again just pat the product on the lid. It's small which is why I love it because you don't get a lot of fallout from it.

The bottom two picture are a small shortl rounded smudged brush from Coastal Scents BR-C-N14. The site says it's actually an eyebrow brush but I like using it on the lower lashline as well to smudge liner or smoke out the lower lash line with shadow.

The top two photos here, show a larger blending brush from Coastal Scents BR-C-N42. This is a pretty big blending brush. So big in fact that I can use it to set my under eye concealer with powder. However, it's tapered and dense so it's actually really great for applying your transition color. It's not something to use if you need to be precise so keep that in mind but I actually love it. I was afraid of it at first cause of the size but it actually makes things very easy for me now.

The bottom two photos are MAC 217 blending brush. This is a highly popular brush in the makeup community. It's your everyday go to brush. If you don't have any other brush them get this one or something similar like the Sigma E25, Coastal Scents pro blending brush, etc etc. They make them everyday. This is the brush you use to blend out your harsh lines. I always tell people, "if you don't do anything else then blend". I use this mainly in my crease and I probably have about 5 or 6 of these because one is just not enough. I'm being completely serious.

The brush in the top two photos here is a pencil brush. This particular one is from Sigma. When doing eye makeup you need three brushes to be able to do absolutely any eye look you want from simplest to most dramatic. You need a pencil brush, a blending brush, and a shader brush be it a flat thin one or a flat dense domed one. This brush I use to darken up the outer corner of the lid especially. You can also darken the crease with it. I use it to smudge eyeshadow on the lower lash line and apply shadow to the inner corner of the lid if a larger brush would get too messy.

The brush in the bottom photos is an angled brush from Coastal Scents BRCN18. I actually bought two of these. I have several of these from all over and it's another style that I will tell you to get a few because they're really multi functional. I use mine for filling in eyebrows and another one for applying gel liner. You can use them to smudge liner, or apply shadow to the lashline. I've even used it to sculpt lips.

I know that I've gave you brushes from different brands but these are just the ones I gravitate toward. I have an entire Sigma "set" which I do love, but the more I do makeup on myself and others I realize that there are several that I need duplicates of. That's always a good opportunity to discover different brands that hopefully will have some just as good and for less. That's what happened with the Coastal Scents brushes. They have sales quite often. Some of these were only $1. For Black Friday everything on the site was half off. So I do recommend eventually getting a really good set like Sigma or MAC if you still want one, but I still stand behind more affordable brands like Coastal Scents, Real Techniques, RC etc.