The Foundation Brushes

This post contains products that were sent to me for my consideration. Go here for my disclosure policy.

When I’m not haphazardly smooshing foundation across my face with my fingers, I reach for one of three foundation brushes to make my skin look pretty. These three brushes aren’t necessarily all meant for foundation, though that’s what I use them for the most.

The first, my favourite, is the Real Techniques Buffing Brush. Many bloggers talk about how great the Expert Face Brush is from Real Techniques, but I haven’t tried that one yet. Honestly I haven’t found the need to! The Buffing Brush can be used for liquid or powder foundation, though I prefer using it for liquid, and buffs the foundation into the skin beautifully. The synthetic bristles are dense but long(ish), so if you apply the foundation straight to the brush I have noticed that it can get sucked deeper into the bristles where it isn’t useful. (And it can be a butt to clean if that happens too.) I usually dot the foundation around my face with a finger first and use the Buffing Brush to even out the coverage and buff it into the skin.

A very recent addition to my brush collection is the Real Techniques Sculpting Brush. I know, I know – it’s meant for contouring and by all rights I imagine it’s brilliant at it. The shape fits perfectly under the cheekbones and it blends powder beautifully. But as I don’t contour (and don’t actually have any contouring powder to test out it’s contouring abilities) I decided to try using this for foundation. After all, it’s about the same height as the Real Techniques Buffing Brush (though the Sculpting Brush is tapered), so I figured it’d probably work about the same. It does – but even better when it comes to working product around the nose, mouth or eyes. I’m especially a fan of using this to blend concealer under the eyes – the slim shape is the perfect fit.

Last, but certainly not least, is the most expensive brush in my collection, and my favourite for using with powder foundation – bareMinerals Precision Face Brush. Because of it’s flat top it is really nice to press powder into the skin with, and the slightly tapered cut to the bristles mean you can really get into the corners or your nose well. When I use the bareMinerals Precision Face Brush, I typically press powder onto my problem areas where I need more coverage to start off with and then buff powder into the rest of my skin in small circular motions. The nice thing about this brush is that it seems to be anti-cake face – it layers product beautifully onto the skin. I haven’t tried this with loose powder, which I usually avoid because of the mess factor, but with pressed powder it’s pretty darn close to perfection.

What’s your favourite way to apply foundation?