Love for Brushes

[AMK721]

I'm developing a love for brushes of all kinds.  I bought a few higher end brushes and they are amazing.  They are incredibly soft and my makeup glides on like a dream.  There are so many interesting shapes. I am really interested in creating a beautiful brush collection.  Show your brushes and share any cleaning and storage tips and let us know which ones are your favorites.

[SurprisedLemur]

@WinglessOne  I see nothing wrong with your reasoning 😁

[Harobedb]

One other memo: they're apparently packaging ALL six of the Lunar New Year brushes together for the fun price of $750, for anyone who wants to grab that.

[Harobedb]

@SurprisedLemur  Thanks, but I already had it on my calendar. Grabbed that sucker the minute it went live! 🙂

[SurprisedLemur]

@HarobedbHaha same 😁

[WinglessOne]

Cross-posting from the Joyous January Hauls 2024 New Year, New Beginnings thread. 

Here’s my Sonia G. Sunset Cranes set: 

The box stands vertically, making it a handy brush holder.

L-R: Soft Pencil, Mini Builder, Flat Smudger, and Arched Worker.

Closeup of maki-e handle: 

Spoiler

Closeups of the handle: front & back.

Despite the issue I’m about to talk about, I’m very happy to have this set! Cranes have very personal and sentimental meaning to me, so I knew I needed these brushes as soon as I saw them. 🖤 The grey (err, blue; not that there’s really a difference) squirrel bristles are as silky soft as you’d expect. The Arched Worker is a big ol’ brush, even by typical fude eye shader standards; I might take some comparison photos later of that one and a couple other brushes. 

One of the brushes, the Mini Builder, arrived with this wonky shape: 

Another brush, the Soft Pencil, doesn’t look as expected. I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be angled/tapered more on one side than the other(s), or if it just got smushed in transit; probably the latter: 

Extreme closeup to try showing the seemingly flat surface of the curved taper edge.

I emailed Beautylish customer service about both brushes but only sent them the Mini Builder photo. They replied that other Sunset Cranes buyers have reported misshapen bristles, probably caused by the way the brushes were packed. They claimed the bristles will revert to their intended shape after the brushes have been washed. Were this my first fude purchase, or even just my first grey squirrel brush purchase, I might happily accept that explanation. But it’s not, and I’ve never received squirrel brushes misshaped as much as these two. I dunno, maybe I’ve just been lucky til now. 🤷‍♀️ 

I never wash squirrel brushes before first use. But to test Beautylish’s answer, I gave the Soft Pencil and Mini Builder a Beautyblender blendercleanser® solid wash* and hung ‘em to dry. I do think the Soft Pencil may look more like a symmetrical pencil shape once it’s dry. But I have doubts about the Mini Builder losing its lopsided shape. I’ll find out this evening. 

If anyone else bought this set (I know @danielledanielle did), let me know how your brushes looked upon arrival. I’m very curious. 🤔 

*I use the unscented Blendercleanser Solid on all my brushes for a true thorough washing. Between those washes, I use spray cleansers. 

UPDATE: Here’s how my 2 oddly shaped brushes look post-wash and fully dried. 

Still not “perfect” but far more acceptable than before.L: the deeper angle’s visible on the right side of the brush. R: angle’s visible on the left side of the brush.

[blackkitty2014]

@WinglessOne @I’m sorry to hear that. I had the same issue with Beautylish in the past not with Sonia G but on one of the LE Wayne Goss brush. I called and emailed but they said I can return and wait for refund but basically they said all of them are that way and no imperfection. I just remembered to suck it up and put Beautylish on my penalty box for about a year. I hope they would do something for you. I want this Sonia G set but now I’m scared. Not so sure I will purchase if this set comes back in stock.

[WinglessOne]

@blackkitty2014  Sorry you had a similar experience. ☹️ I’m glad they offered you a refund. I wasn’t sure what Beautylish could do for this Sunset Cranes issue, since these brushes were bought as a set that’s very limited. I assume they don’t have replacements handy for exchanges 😅 and I didn’t want to return the whole set. I’m kinda surprised they didn’t offer me a store credit for, I dunno, the price of one or two of these brushes.

I still need to send them my post-wash photos so they can see the problem isn’t just a packing issue. My Soft Pencil is shaped like that because of how it was bundled and cut by the brush maker. My Mini Builder’s problem is more a combo of being smushed in transit and cut slightly off-center. I don’t want to return either brush, unless I can somehow get a truly symmetrical Mini Builder. I like my quirky Soft Pencil the way it is. I just feel obligated to let Beautylish see what’s wrong.

Meanwhile, I’m glad I can help you and other folks decide whether these brushes are worth their price and the hassle of ordering. I do still love my set. If Beautylish passed along customer complaints to Sonia G, I wonder if the next release will be more consistently “perfect,” assuming that batch of brushes wasn’t made in a rush. 

If I was smart, I’d put Beautylish in the penalty box too. 😂 It would certainly help my goal to buy fewer brushes this year. 

[blackkitty2014]

I truly do hope they would credit you some something @WinglessOne . That what’s they should do to keep good loyal customers happy. 🫰Fingers crossed

[Georgiiiaaa]

Those are all so pretty! Thank you for the review @WinglessOne 

[WinglessOne]

Thank you @Georgiiiaaa ! 

[SurprisedLemur]

Thanks so much for the detailed review @WinglessOne ! I keep missing them... I was hoping to catch the next restock but now I'm second guessing 😕

[WinglessOne]

@SurprisedLemur  I hope the next restock won’t be as insane as the previous ones. But I understand not wanting to do battle royale to get this set and end up with misshapen bristles, if that’s what’s holding you back now. At least the brushes really do revert to (or close to) their intended shape after a proper wash. 

If you decide to try getting this set, I hope you succeed! 

[SurprisedLemur]

Thanks @WinglessOne ! I guess I'm just a little disappointed by the quality issues people are reporting. This shouldn't be an issue with such expensive brushes. I have some of Sonia's regular line one and they're flawless, so I wonder if there are some issue with the production of these, and I wonder if they're rushing new batches now because they saw that there is demand. Pure speculation...

[WinglessOne]

@SurprisedLemur  I wondered that too. I’ve received other Sonia Gs that were obviously smushed by their plastic wraps and just needed a wash to fluff out to their full potential. But they weren’t misshapen (bundling or cutting errors), just smushed. The Sunset Cranes brushes arrived in the usual plastic wraps but were mostly loose inside their wood box: there wasn’t enough shredded paper padding in the box to keep the brushes still, so they were able to bounce against the box lid during transit. Pretty sure that contributed to some issues. 

I haven’t poked around other forums to see/read about more people’s brushes yet. But Beautylish CS telling me others have reported issues is… interesting. I agree that for the price, these brushes shouldn’t have such obvious issues. Also though, I like my quirky Soft Pencil. 😂 I won’t push for a refund unless the other 3 brushes have performance issues (excessive shedding, reverting back to a misshapen state, etc.). But I get wanting and rightfully expecting perfection at this price point and above. 

[SurprisedLemur]

@WinglessOneI'm glad to hear your other brushes are performing well so far! I didn't look too much apart from here and the beautylish reviews. There were a number of negative reviews on the crane brush page, mostly about the launch issues but a couple were about brush quality and beautylish has deleted them all... which kinda gives me the ick 😥

[Harobedb]

@SurprisedLemur  Beautylish deleted negative reviews? Geez, I didn't think they were like that (considering that's a Sephora thing to do.) Not a good sign!

[WinglessOne]

@Harobedb  @SurprisedLemur  @danielledanielle  I skimmed reviews at Beautylish after the morning drop, again after the afternoon drop, and then a few days later. All negative reviews I saw were from folks who couldn’t get the brushes and complained about that—and there were lots of those reviews. I’d hoped to see reviews by people who got the set from the original launch that happened days earlier, but nope. I need to post a review myself, once I’ve used all 4 brushes. (Note to self.) 

I fully understand Beautylish deleting reviews from people who don’t even have the product in question. Each time I went back to check for reviews by anyone whose brushes had issues similar to mine, I noticed some non-product reviews had been deleted but new ones had sprung up. It’s frustrating to weed through those. People should complain about the site/order issues, but not on the product page. 

[SurprisedLemur]

@HarobedbYes I was very surprised as well, it's the first time I've seen them do that.

[danielledanielle]

@SurprisedLemur& @Harobedb yeah, but I think A LOT of them were about the launch and asking for pre-sale, which were reasonable statements, but the review page wasn't the best place for it.  I feel bad for the CS department, but not Beautylish because this was handled poorly.

[SurprisedLemur]

Agreed @danielledanielle , a lot of them were about the launch issues.

[danielledanielle]

@WinglessOne Just received mine, the pencil brush is just like yours. Mini builder... Can't really discern if it's misshapen, but I've taken pics for comparison.