Holy Grail Eyeshadow Brushes…

It’s slightly strange that I talk about makeup here all the time and yet have failed to ever mention brushes; so better late than never. I never considered talking about brushes because I don’t tend to stray, when I find a brush that works I stick to it hardcore. Now, I’m realizing if anything that’s even more reason to write about it, the brushes I’ve added to my collection have proven to be die hard holy grail brushes, so of course I should be sharing them with you all. I think this post is also going to serve another purpose, which is giving you guys an idea of how I generally go about doing my eye makeup. I’m hoping to post tutorials or makeup-of-the-days in the future and this is kind of a good start. Disclaimer, this is a seriously strange combo of brushes. From a shady cheap brush I could never track down again to the infamous sigma blending brush; random doesn’t even begin to cut it. 
No better place to start than weird, so let’s get right into it. If my memory serves me right, this brush was from the brand Essence. It definitely was discontinued somewhere along the road, but never in my heart haha. I have tried sigma, zoeva, Mac, any eyeshadow brand you can imagine and I have never found a base shadow brush that can pack on color as well as this baby. I try to ignore the fact that it’s life is clearly coming to an end, but I use this brush for any light shimmery colors or any inner-corner highlighting. It will pack on any color, whatever goes onto that brush will be blended out smoothly and pigmented on your lid. Any other brands seem to either not pick up enough product or not distribute it well enough onto my lids. It is a seriously amazing find and let’s just not talk about what I’m going to do when it dies out. 

We all know this wouldn’t be a brush post if it didn’t have at least one Real Techniques product in it. So for most of my eye looks I tend to use a lot of different shades of the same color to give a gradient and blended out effect on my eye. This is usually accomplished by a transition shade, a couple of darker shades and then a slightly medium shade further into the lid ( clearly a basic version of a complicated story I’ll go into further sometime soon). This medium shade I like to pack on to serve as a gradient from the darker outer corner shade to a lighter inner corner, and this Real Techniques ‘Base Shadow Brush’ is perfect for that. Not only does it perfectly pack on the colors but it blends them out without me even trying which is perfect, I usually then proceed to use the brush to blend the gradients into each other and give that ombré blended out effect. 

Zoeva has grown infamous over the past couple of years as a cheaper but equally as good dupe for sigma brushes. Two of their brushes have earned themselves places in my everyday use holy grail eyeshadow brushes. First the Contour Shader 235, this is guaranteed to be your go to outer corner eyeshadow brush. It’s ideal for giving you the most blended out pigmented outer corner, the angled shape of it helps it perfectly fit right in your outer v and slightly into your crease. It’s like it was made for it. Swear by this brush to give a blended out dark outer corner to give you that extra dimension we’re all so eagerly after. 

Next is 228 Crease brush, I struggle to articulate my love for this baby. This is the perfect most life-changing blending brush you will ever need. Mac’s 217, eat your heart out. I even tried to substitute this bad boy for Sigma’s infamous e40 but nothing compared. This is the dream brush to just blend your entire life away. It will make any harsh line’s it’s bitch and just blend your look into a professionally made up eye. Just try it, you need to. Thank me later. 

It’s probably starting to sound like I wander around with creaseless eyes, I’ve probably lost a fair amount of legitimacy around about now. But I’ve saved the best for last. You didn’t really think I’d write this post without including a Sigma brush, did you? Yes, I caved in to the hype, I made a deal with the devil, drank the kool-aid; I’m obsessed with Sigma’s E25. I think you can tell by the unwashed nature of it how often I use this brush. I’d be lying if I said I only use this to pack on color into my crease. If I’m honest, aside from the Essence, I basically also use this brush to do everything the aforementioned ones do. It is a dream, it is my love. This will blend out, pack on color, give me an outer v, give me a gradient, give me my entire life. Buy it, now. Yes, it’s worth the hype. Yes, you will get every kind of use out of it. Yes, it’s heaven-sent. 

Let me know some of your holy grail eyeshadow brushes. Clearly I’m a little too attached and could do with some experimentation haha.