iHerb haul ft. Real Techniques and e.l.f.

Over the past year or so, my makeup collection has really grown. It's huge, considering towards the end of 2012 I was only just starting to get into wearing makeup. Now I have eyeshadow palettes, blush and lipsticks all over the place. One part of my collection that hasn't grown that much though, is my brushes. I only have a handful of them, and of that handful, only a couple are actually decent quality. Where do you go to for affordable good quality brushes? iHerb, of course!

I ordered the Real Techniques starter set and blush brush, which have both been on my wish list for a while now, but also decided to pick up some e.l.f. brushes too. I chose the stipple brush and powder brush, so I had some face brushes to leave at the boy's house.

 

 deluxe blending brush, base shadow brush, accent brush, liner brush and eyebrow brush

The Real Techniques starter set is pretty great! I'm a huge fan of the deluxe blending brush, it really makes blending eyeshadows a dream, and it's lovely and soft. The base shadow brush is a little too big and flexible to really pack on eyeshadow. However, I find the shape is great to use in the outer corner to add a darker colour and start blending it out. I haven't found myself using the accent brush much, except to smudge out eyeliner on both top and bottom lashes, which it's great for. The liner brush is great for gel liner, although I haven't perfected using it to create a winged liner look. Lastly the eyebrow brush is great for brows, but think perhaps it's a little big.

Blush Brush, Stipple Brush, Powder Brush

On to the face brushes, the Real Techniques blush brush is fantastic for blush! It's so much bigger than the brush I was previously using, which I thought might mean it would be harder to use, but nope! It's not. It's so soft, but still fantastic and blending.
These 2 e.l.f brushes were a bit of a spur of the moment choice. I did a little bit of research into the stipple brush, after I got it, and found that the mini stipple brush is way better than this one. This stipple brush is way less dense than my RT one. It sheds, and you really have to work to make sure your foundation doesn't end up looking streaky. It is soft however, and is great around the eye area.

The powder brush is fantastic, dense and soft. It's great for using with powder foundation, or setting your foundation with powder. Although I haven't used it for liquid foundation, I think this brush would work for liquid too. It's dense enough that it could be used to buff it in.

l-r: Powder Brush, Stipple Brush, Blush Brush

What are your favourite brushes?

ELF and NYX.

3 weeks ago I did an order from beautyjoint.com. I'd heard some good things about the ELF studio blushes, and I'd also been looking at NYX ultra pearl mania loose eyeshadows. There are a few sites selling both of these, but beautyjoint seemed to have the cheapest products and shipping, and I don't mind waiting for things.
Picking the blushes were easy. I wanted a coraly/peachy colour and peachy keen was a cool name. Yes, I chose things based on names rather than what they actually look like! I also chose tickled pink because I heard it was a lovely pink colour with minimal glitter. Choosing the pigments was a little tougher. I wanted some pinks because I didnt have any pink shadows, and pink is my favourite colour. I didn't want to just get 2, but trying to pick a 3rd was hard. There were so many lovely colours, but in the end I ended up just getting Penny, a colour I think goes with the pinks nicely. I also ordered a pack of 2 eyeshadow brushes from La Colours - a shader and a blender.
They came very well packaged in bubble wrap, the blushes wrapped together, and the eyeshadows and brushes wrapped together.

Tickled Pink (l) and Peachy Keen (r)

Peachy keen (l) and tickled pink (r)

You can see how sheer they are in the swatch. I tried to get more colour but I just couldn't. They're very powdery, almost chalky, too. Ok for $4 each, but I think it would be worth spending more to get better quality. In saying that, they're not this sheer when applied on the cheeks and you can build up a decent colour.

NYX ultra pearl mania baby pink (l), very pink pearl (m) and penny (r).

I put my Australis domed eyeshadow brush (from the 5 piece travel set) in for size comparison. The openings for this are pretty hard to get into, but I have some small bead containers coming that I will depot them into. These are also somewhat chalky in texture, and felt kinda weird when I applied them. They were only $3 each though, and the colour is nice, so I might get over that. They're pretty sheer too, but not so much when applied over a primer.

baby pink (l), very pink pearl and penny (r).

A photo showing the blender (l) and shader (r) brushes. You can tell from this photo how poor quality they are. They'll do the job though until I get around to buying some better quality brushes, and together they were only $2.25.

I would do an order from beautyjoint again, but I have read some horrible stories about them on the internet about appalling customer service and broken nail polishes.