Face Brushes Review and Comparison 3: Flirt Feather Dust-her, Stila #8, Stila #21

Today is the last installment of my comparison and review of face brushes (Part 1 is HERE, and Part 2 is HERE). But you know what? Today I just spent a whole day swatching stuff, so I'm SO EXCITED about what I'm going to bring you! :) You'll love it, trust me ;) Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be posting swatches of ALL the Sleek iDivine palettes, one a day! :) So you're going to love it :)




Anyway on the topic of face brushes. Today we're reviewing the Flirt! Feather Dust-Her, the Stila #8, and the Stila #21, all of which are brushes which make my heart melt with delight everytime I see them.

First of all. The Flirt! brush is really nice, and it has bristles that are floppier and sparser than the 188. Unfortunately, this sparseness and floppiness means that it picks up...almost nothing. At least, that is if you're using it for powder. However, when used it for cream blushes, it gives the perfect application! I like how the soft bristles work well with all types of cream blushes, from the harder Bobbi Brown ones to the soft-as-mush Becca ones, but this one works with all of them. I think in this case the floppiness of the bristles works to its advantage - you don't get dots of cream blush on your face as might happen if the bristles of a skunk brush are too unwieldy, you just get a nice blended look. This is my HG brush for all cream blushes, although it's totally useless for powder.

Next, we have the Stila #8. This is just an ordinary powder brush, and it's definitely too big to be used for blush or highlighter or anything else - unless you happen to want to put it all over your face. But it does the job very well. There's something about this brush that totally kicks the ass of all my other powder brushes, including the MAC 134. For one, the bristles are not too dense, and not too sparse. And another thing is that the bristles are very soft. And another thing is that the dome shape is just right. This brush is a flat paddle powder brush, and I like how the dome shape works with that. Altogether, this is a very well constructed brush, especially for loose powder. Nothing compares to this baby. It's perfect, but it's also discontinued...*Shakes fist*

Lastly, we have the Stila #21. Unlike it's sister, it's actually still in production - so if you use pressed powder or blush, get this now! I love how I can use this for any and everything - except eyeshadow, LOL. For pressed powder or loose powder, I use the entire circular face of this brush, and for less pigmented blushes, I also 'stamp' on the brush using its circular face. For more pigmented blush, however, as well as for highlighters, I use the edge of the brush, and gently blend it in. Viola! Face done! I could use this for powder, then blush, then highlighter, and throw on some lippie and be out of the door, so this is really a great multi-tasker. It's really one of the best brushes there is!

So that concludes it for today! Starting tomorrow over the next 4 days, I will be posting SWATCHES OF THE SLEEK I-DIVINE PALETTES! So look out for it! :)

Face Brushes Review and Comparison: Part 1 MAC 187 and 189

So I said in this post that I should do a post on my face brushes. And here you go! Over the next few days/weeks/however long it takes (with interruptions), I'll be doing reviews of my favourite brushes in my stash! Here they are. Not all of them are here, of course, but these are my favourites, my must-haves, and the ones I use the most often. Just a disclaimer: None of these brushes are free samples etc. I bought every single one of these with my own hard-earned money! I'm just reviewing them because...well they're in my stash, and well, a HG powder or blush brush can be the hardest thing to find sometimes, and it doesn't help that brushes tend to cost a lot of money:



L - R: Flirt! Feather Dust-Her, Body Shop blush brush, MAC 188, MAC 187, MAC 189, Stila #21, Stila #8, Stila #24

So here they are, after being washed, mostly dry. I thought it would be a good idea to take all the face brushes together, to give an idea of scale and relative size, so you can get a good idea of how big/small one brush is next to another. Sadly, the Stila #8 has been discontinued, much to my chagrin, because it was one of the best powder brushes I've ever had (and this is after trying the MAC 134 and the Shu Uemura 18R). *Shakes fist* When I contacted Stila Customer Service about it, the jokers at CS told me to go and look at the Stila #31, which is NOT AT ALL like the #8. The #8 is much better in quality than the #31, but then again I have a thing against retractable brushes in general (except my Too Faced Kabuki - wait, why is it not in the picture? Nevermind, it gets it's own review, then I guess).

Anyway, today I will kick off my Face Brushes Series with a review of the MAC 189, and the MAC 187, because I don't have much to say about them. To be honest, they're the least used and the least favourite in the bunch, but that's probably just me.

The MAC 187 brush has reached cult status across makeupdom, and is the HG brush of many a liquid foundation user. Which herein lies why I don't like the MAC 187 as much as other people do - I don't use liquid foundation. I did use it to try to blend out my Kevin Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer, but somehow it didn't quite look 'right' even then. For blush application this is pretty good though - I like how the shape of the 187 fits just right onto my cheek area, not too small, and not too big. However, I tend to prefer the either the 188, the Stila #24, or the Body Shop blush brush, depending on what blushes I'm using (more on that in later reviews). So as a result, my 187 suffers from neglect. I do think this is a good quality brush though, it's just that the fact that I don't wear liquid foundation - coupled with the fact that I tend to use my other blush brushes over it - makes it rarely used.

The MAC 189 brush was first launched together with the MSF Naturals, and was touted as a blush that can be used for BOTH powder and cream. Now of course this flies against the face of all my makeup training and knowledge - traditional makeup theory says that synthetic brushes are best for cream, and natural brushes are best for powder, although of course in recent years the boundary has been blurred with the advent of better synthetic bristles etc etc. Anyway, I was curious to see how this worked for both powder and cream, and I have to say....I'm a bit ambivalent when it comes to poweder. Sure it applied face powder fairly well, but it just felt weird using a paddle synthetic brush to put on powder, if you know what I mean. I felt the finish was acceptable - it wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't le suckage either. I also tried using it for powder blush, but the effect wasn't as great as using an actualy blush brush, as the blending was a bit hard to do with the brush. I tried using this baby for cream blushes too, and once again, I found it a bit hard to blend out the cream blushes, as it tended to leave a hard line where the edges of the bristles were. Maybe I'm spoiled by all the skunk brushes out there, but this was just a meh for me. Not impressed.

So that's it for this brush post. I've no idea what brushes I'll cover for the next brush post, so feel free to comment and leave any suggestions :) I'll cover all of them eventually though :)