All About Brushes, Guides

All About Brushes: Powder Brushes

This is the last step in my daily makeup routine, so it’ll be the last ‘brush type’ category in the All About Brushes series (don’t worry though – brush care is still coming up!). Lots of brushes can be used with powder products, but for the purposes of this section I’m specifically referring to ones used to apply setting or finishing powders. For the most part, powder brushes tend to be on the large side, to cover lots of area at once. However, you may also want to use smaller brushes (which can double as blush, highlight or contour brushes) to apply powder in smaller areas like under the eyes or around the nose. Like cheek brushes, there are a huge number of shapes, sizes and handle lengths to choose from, so these are just extremely broad categories.

Powder BrushRound: The round shape with a sort of flat top lets you swirl the brush in the product to pick up powder, and then swirl it lightly over your face. This particular brush also has loosely-packed and very soft hairs, which helps avoid disturbing the other products you’re wearing. I like this type best for finishing powders.

 

Powder BrushTapered: The slightly pointed tip on a tapered brush gives you a little more precision in placing powder, but still covers a lot of area. This one is more densely packed, so the hairs will stay in place if you press the brush against your skin. That’s good for setting powder, so you can set your cream or liquid products without moving them around. It also works well with finishing powder too.

 

Powder BrushFan: A dense fan brush is incredibly versatile to use with power products. You can cover large areas by sweeping the long side across your face, or just use the end of the brush for smaller areas.

See, like I said, very broad categories! If you have questions, feel free to ask in the comments (or email me, or tweet, or… you get the idea).

 

5 Comments

  1. Samantha M

    January 24, 2014 at 12:35 pm

    What is the name of that chikuhodo pink brush?! It’s absolutely gorgeous and i love tapered powder brushes xx

    1. Nikki

      January 24, 2014 at 1:07 pm

      It’s the powder brush from the Passion series, here. I still need to review it, but it’s black goat, so quite as soft as Hakuhodo white goat (but definitely not scratchy at all!). Also, now-eproject just lowered their minimum order from $200 to $100.

      1. Samantha M

        January 25, 2014 at 10:52 am

        Thank you so much, Nikki! That was super helpful. I know they’re so pricey but i think a good powder brush would make an excellent investment. I’ll keep a look out for your review and go on from there :)

  2. Jillian

    January 27, 2014 at 1:28 am

    Is that the J104? If so, it’s been sitting in my cart for ages! I’ve been debating getting a fan brush too. I just can’t decide if I should do Hakuhodo or Koyudo.

    …oh the choices.

    1. Nikki

      January 27, 2014 at 8:36 am

      It most surely is the J104! It’s so soft & fluffy :-) I really love the Hakuhodo fan brush, but I think it’s out of stock on their website at the moment.

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