Brushes

Brushes are essential to good makeup application! Again, this is something that I learned quite recently. The best part of this is that you can get some really great brushes for not a lot of money!

My absolute favorite brand is Real Techniques. Real Techniques is a line of brushes designed by Samantha Chapman. Most of the brushes retail for around $10. They are literally the softest, most wonderful face brushes I've ever owned. I use the Stippling Brush for my foundation, the Powder Brush for my loose powder and the Blush Brush for blush. They are definitely worth the $10 and honestly, I would pay more now that I've used them. One thing though...the face brushes are excellent but there isn't really a big selection of eye brushes and what they have is just okay.

My next favorite set of brushes is by Posh. I have the Dual Ended Set which I picked up at K-Mart for around $12-$14. It's an awesome little set that I use every day. It has all my go to brushes for applying eye makeup. It also comes with a cute little case that protects your brushes, which I find really handy. They tend to get all messed up just thrown in your makeup bag.

I also have a few E.L.F. brushes. These are so cheap and they have quite a few really good brushes. I specifically use the blending eye brush every day. It's soft and nice and does the job. I hear tons of good things about E.L.F. brushes and for $1-$5 each, you can get one for everything! I know they sell them at Target and Dollar General, as well as on the website.

I've also used some Ecotools brushes. They are very popular and you can pick them up at Target, Walmart, Walgreens...very accessible. They are nice and soft and are Earth friendly. They donate 1% of sales to green charities every year. They retail from around $5 for a single brush to $15 or so for a set.

The last line of brushes that I'm familiar with are from Avon. I sold Avon for a while and picked up some brushes there. They have some good eye brushes, mostly in their Mark line. These brushes are reasonably priced from about $5-10, sometimes less if you can catch them on sale. You can order online from Avon now, which I love, because you don't need to go through a rep and you can get your things directly to your house.

There are, of course, higher end brushes that I could mention but I'm happy with my "cheap" set. You can check out Sephora for the higher end brushes and Ulta for brushes of all prices.