What are your must have make brushes?

[ShaunaDiane88]

What brushes would you recommend to someone starting a make up brush kit??

[maddyox]

I love the Sephora Pro brushes ! I also loved buying my makeup by Mario eye brush collection ! When I first started my professional kit I bought a morphe collection! It’s very reasonably priced and comes with all essentials

[Mack110]

If you're looking to buy brushes buy them from Morphe! 1/3 the price of brushes from Sephora and such high quality! When I first started makeup I bought a brush kit and only used less than half of the brushes. Buy them individually with ones you'll use. To know what brushes I liked/ needed I YouTube it and it was really helpful. 

I almost always blend my foundation and concealer in with a brush and then go back and touch up with a beauty blender I find it helps get any fine lines a brush leaves. Before I used a brush I found using a  beauty blender alone soaked up a lot of product. 

[Brutalitops]

That's a big question @ShaunaDiane88 !😊 To better answer, I have some questions for you

1) What formulas/types of makeup are you looking to use your brushes for? Liquid, cream, powder, mix and match, etc

2) Are you looking for face brushes, eye brushes, or both?

3) If you are looking for eye brushes, what shape eyes do you have? For example, if your eyes are all the way open, can you see the whole lid or is some tucked up into a crease fold (hooded)? How complex are you thinking you'll want to get with eye looks?

4) Least important, but still worth noting- is there a colorway or aesthetic you'd like to stick to?

[Brutalitops]

@ShaunaDiane88sorry, I'm going to post my full response in pieces because it keeps not going through altogether and I get big sad

Anyway- For eye brushes, I can do an entire look with a small blender and more precision or smudger brush, and occasionally I'll use a liner brush or pencil brush if I use a shadow for a liner. My eyes have a slight hood so I need smaller brushes to get the kind of detail I want. My absolute favorite brush is my Luxie small blender 231, but unfortunately they don't sell them separately or I'd have like 8 already. I did just get a smaller blender from the Sonia Kashuk line at target (their newer pink ones) and it also works great, though the longer bristles offer a little less control than the luxie. In any case, I'd suggest a set from SK, Luxie, or Spectrum- spectrum and SK at target offering the benefit of buying individuals. The full target set- face and eyes- also costs $40, so it's really a great deal and the ability to get duplicates of favorites so you alwayshave a clean one is a huge plus to me.

For face brushes, my favorites are

Big poofy light-pack powder brush- For setting powder

Smaller poofy light-pack powder brush- for powder bronzer, you want a little more ability to place product just where you want it here, hence it should be smaller. You may potentially want a denser one too to blend out over placement/too much product

Medium pack foundation brush- This will really come down to preference. Denser pack= fuller coverage and I prefer medium to light coverage. Another tip is that you can use a hydrating toner to spray down your brush before using it to apply your liquid foundation to keep the brush from eating your foundation, it'll also help keep your skin fresh under your makeup!

Angled Bush-As stated, just what I tend to prefer for powdered blush

Overall:No matter what you do, start cheap. Eco tools, elf, Sonia Kashuk, luxie, zoeva- all are good brushes. Once you figure out the shapes, densities, sizes and materials you prefer you can start upgrading. Another great place to look when you start that journey is the Love for Brushes thread!

[Brutalitops]

One last thing, If you prefer cream foundations/blushes/whatever- the super sponge is a great investment. Pros are the silicone dip makes it way better for thicker formulas that a sponge would just eat like a cream blush, it makes it way more hygenic and easy to clean, and generally it just soaks up less product than a sponge (beauty blender or generic version). Cons are that since it's a new product there aren't any generic versions (They run $30), they do some pretty decent sales though