little white truths

You may well have seen these knock-off Real Techniques brushes all over the internet. I know I have, which is one of the reasons why I was keen to grab a set and try them for myself. And judging from the number of sales, it looks like I'm not the only one!

I bought these for the grand total of $8.95 AUD (free shipping) sometime last month. The vendor's details are here. When I searched ebay for the brushes, it seemed like hundreds of entries appeared for brush sets that look exactly like this one. I chose this one from the mass because it looked like this particular vendor had sold more than everyone else combined, so I chose to believe that others knew something I didn't.

Really, perhaps I could have just gone for the $1 set because they all come from the same factory ; ). Maybe no one knows anything about the different knock offs available, it's just that we all went for these because if they're more expensive than the other entries, 'they must be better'. Ha.

Anyhoo. They showed up within a couple of weeks without any fuss, but it's only now that I've been able to photograph and use them because my camera recently died and my iPhone is prehistoric, so I had to wait until my husband received his new phone so I could grab his old one and use the camera on that.

As you can see from the picture, you get seven brushes of varying shapes and sizes and they look pretty fancy, although of course they feel pretty cheap. Having said this, it's the 'metal' (plastic) part of the brushes that feels the cheapest - the bristles themselves don't feel too bad and they're quite soft. But how do they perform?

From left to right (noting that the brushes don't come with descriptions from the vendor that I can see), this smaller face brush works well enough for blush and highlighter application, depending on how you angle it. It's soft but not too soft, and it's one of the more useful brushes in the set.

The triangular one is, I suspect, designed for cream products. You may be able to use it to apply your foundation and concealer (and it's shaped well to get into the hard-to-reach places; eg around your nose), but I can't really comment on that since I never use brushes to apply creams (I use my fingers). This is a little harder and I don't really have any use for it since it's not great for powders.

The big powder brush is fine for setting powder and mineral foundation, but I find it unusable for bronzer - or at least, the bronzer I'm using at the moment. It's too big and floppy so it doesn't apply my bronzer well, but I can use another brush to apply it and then diffuse it with this one.

The eye brushes are probably the worst in the set and I think they could have been better designed - one of the two in the middle should be smaller and allow for a more precise application. Yes they're different shapes (the second from the left is bigger and better for your base colour), but the one that's second from the right doesn't help me when it comes to getting colour on the lid, the inner corner, or smudging colour under the lashline. A smaller eye brush is the biggest gap in the set (at least for me).

The angled brush is quite small and it works fine for eyeliner application and for your brows. Note that it's quite stiff, so I find it kicks up a lot of excess powder, no matter how careful I am with my shadows.

The flat face brush (far right) is ok for placing your contour, but I don't think it does a great job of blending it out. Still, it's usable and you may also be able to use it as a buffing brush for your cream products (eg foundation, blush).

In brief, this is an ok set that works well enough but I can't see myself reaching for it often - probably only when all my other brushes are dirty ; )

The set looks nice on your dresser but it's not amazing and I don't love how it applies some of my products (particularly bronzer and eyeshadow). 

On that, the eyeshadow brushes in particular seem to chew up product: they pick it up ok, but it seems to vanish somewhere when you go to place the product on your face. Perhaps the bristles 'catch' the product too much. This isn't a bad thing if you're doing Project Pan or Pan that Palette, because you'll get through your powders much more quickly if you use these!

Also, do note that this isn't a full set of brushes. I think it would be possible to design a set of seven brushes that will cover you for a whole face of makeup, but this set isn't it. As mentioned above, sorely missing is a smaller brush for eyeshadow application, and the available options aren't great for bronzer. But you can find a way to apply a full face of makeup with these if you want to, and if you opt to place colour on the eyes with your fingers and then buff it out with one of the eye brushes.

Overall, I wouldn't say that this set was a waste of money but I don't think it's great either. I'll certainly use it occasionally and it does make a good display piece, but I have other brushes I prefer and in may ways I'd have been better off buying one decent budget brush, rather than this set.

That's all from me! Let me know if you've tried these and what you think if so. I'll check back in with a full review of the set once a few months have passed and I know how they last over time.