Ace Stace Beauty: Real Techniques Brushes

I was pleased to hear last week that the Real Techniques brushes designed by Sam Chapman (one of the Pixiwoo sisters, for anyone who's been living under a rock) are going to be stocked in selected Boots stores from the 15th of February. I've already tried a lot of the brushes so I'm going to do a quick overview of them to share my thoughts.

I have a lot of good things to say about these brushes in general. They're all pretty soft and since they're synthetic, I find them a lot easier to use with cream products such as foundations, cream blushes and cream shadows. They're also so much quicker to wash; I've washed most of these several times and I've not experienced any shedding or colour bleeding. I think these are great brushes for the price. I'm not sure how much they'll be in Boots. I bought mine from Love Make Up so I paid around £10 each for the individual brushes and £21 for the collections.

I do have a couple of minor issues with these brushes, though. I find the handle shape annoying because I store my brushes upright in a tin and the large bases on the bigger brushes makes it difficult to get them in sometimes. I think they'd look a lot better with normal handles. I'd prefer if the brushes were all available individually as I have ended up with some brushes I won't use much. I can't complain since I didn't spend all that much money but I did buy two of the collections just for one brush from each. I'm not a fan of the travel cases that come with the collections but each to their own on that one!

Enough negativity! The brushes I have in the above photo are (from left to right): Powder, Stippling, Buffing, Contour, Pointed Foundation, Detailer, Deluxe Crease, Base Shadow, Brow, Pixel Point Eye Liner and Accent.

I like using the Powder Brush for translucent setting powders but I prefer using other brushes with coloured face powders so I do use it but not all the time. I've used the Stippling Brush almost every day since I bought it in the summer so it's definitely a favourite and one I'd recommend to anyone who wears liquid foundation. It's also nice for cream blush. The Buffing Brush is also lovely for liquid foundation - I've not had this one for very long. It's nice to use with cream and powder blushes too.

I'm a bit ashamed to say I've not used the Contour, Pointed Foundation or Detailer brushes yet. I've only had them a little while but I'm kind of struggling to find a use for them, to be honest! I only bought the set for the Buffing Brush. The Contour brush may work with cream blushes/highlighters, though.

I have previously owned the Blush Brush but I found it was much too floppy and hard to control for me so I no longer have it.

The Deluxe Crease Brush should be called a concealer brush. It's really nice for blending out concealer. It can be a little hard if you apply too much pressure but it's my favourite brush for concealer by far. The Base Shadow Brush is okay, I use it with cream shadows mostly as I don't find it to be very good for packing on colour. The Brow Brush is nice - it's a lot bigger than some other brow brushes I've tried. I've been using a pen for my brows lately so I've not been using this much but I do like it and will go back to using it with my powder brow products. The Pixel Point Eye Liner Brush is quite thick so it's not great for gel liner if you're looking for quite a thin line. It makes a great lip brush, though! I use the Accent brush to smudge out pencil liners or to apply a light shimmery shade to the inner corners of my eyes.