Review: Real Techniques Makeup Brushes

Hello everyone!  Today, I will be doing a review of one of my latest beauty purchases - the Real Techniques makeup brushes.  I was in the market for some new makeup brushes, in particular a flat-ended brush for foundation, but I couldn't justify spending $50+ on one from MAC or Sephora.  I know, MAC brushes are supposedly fabulous, but my budget just doesn't stretch quite that far.  But I had heard about Real Techniques brushes while watching makeup tutorials on YouTube, primarily from a few of the British beauty vloggers.  I hadn't heard of the brand before, and had never seen it in stores, but I decided to do a quick Google search to see what I could find.  And, surprise surprise, I found out that you can't actually buy them in Canada.  At least not at any of the stores that I knew were in my area.  Luckily, Amazon came to the rescue, as it so often does for me, and the best part was that the brushes were incredibly affordable!  I ordered two sets of brushes, 9 in total, and even with shipping from the US, it was under $60!  So I more or less got 9 brushes for the price of one MAC brush.  Hard to beat that!

So now on to what brushes I purchased.  Most of the Real Techniques brushes come in sets, so I selected the two sets that I thought I would get the most use out of.  First, was the Core Collection, which is mainly for base makeup.  It comes with:

• detailer brush - a small, tapered brush good for concealer
• pointed foundation brush - I actually found this a bit small for foundation, but works nicely for powder highlight on cheekbones
• buffing brush - a great stippling brush for foundation, I use it everytime I put on liquid foundation now!
• contour brush - a nicely domed blush brush which fits perfectly into the hollows of your cheeks for contouring

From left: buffing brush, contour brush, pointed foundation brush, detailer brush

Each set comes in its own hard-sided case, which will be great for travelling.  I got these four brushes for $17.99 US.  So far, I really enjoy the three larger brushes in this set.  I found the detailer brush a bit soft for my concealer, but that could just be my preference.

The second set I bought was the Starter Set, which is for the eyes.  I love the colour of the handles on this set, too, it's a really nice grapey purple.  It includes:

• base shadow brush - good for all over lid colour
• deluxe crease brush - my favourite of this set!  creates a beautiful contour and blends nicely
• accent brush - a short, domed brush, good for highlighting the brow bone
• pixel-point eyeliner brush - I haven't actually tried this one as I haven't worn gel eyeliner recently, but it looks like it would be pretty thick to use as a liner...I guess I'll have to wait and see
• brow brush - stiff angled brush, works well for brows, and as a thicker smudgy liner brush

From left: deluxe crease brush, base shadow brush, brow brush, accent brush, pixel-point eyeliner brush

This set was $17.86 US on Amazon - not quite sure why the $0.13 price difference between the two sets, but I'll take it!  As I mentioned before, the crease brush is amazing and if I had to pick one brush out of all of them as my favourite, it would be a toss up between this one and the buffing brush.  I've used both everyday since I got them.  

Overall, I really enjoy the handles on these brushes.  They're a fun colour and it makes it easy to find the brush I'm looking for amongst my jar of makeup brushes.  They also have a nice rubbery grip on the ends of the handles, which makes for good control when applying.  The bristles are all taklon and 100% synthetic, so they wash really nicely and I haven't yet had any problems with shedding.

In terms of negatives, I can't really think of any.  The quality is amazing for the price, even if I did have to have them shipped to Canada.  I'm considered ordering a few more of the single brushes, which are available on the Real Techniques website, which I will link at the bottom of this post.  Really, the only bad thing I can say is that I couldn't buy them in person in Canada!  If I had been able to see them, I probably would've bought the entire collection right off the bat!  Then again, maybe it's not such a bad thing that I couldn't do that...

Ciao!

Real Techniques website: http://realtechniques.com/