Makeup Brush Guide for an Ultimate Glow Up

I’m going to start off by admitting I don’t use makeup brushes in the traditional sense. Meaning, I have 2-3 brushes I use for a quick makeup look and don’t quite pay attention to the rest of the repertoire. I’m starting to change that game around, however, especially since I know how important good brushes are in traditional art (I paint with acrylics and oils.) 

I could technically create a painting with one brush, but it won’t have the same depth and technique as a painting created with multiple tools would. The idea is the same in makeup artistry. While you can get away with one or two brushes, to create a masterpiece you must utilize tools that will accentuate the techniques.

1. Beauty Blender: Wet and squeeze out excess liquid before dabbing into a foundation. It provides sheer coverage that can be slowly built up. Alternatively, use to blend foundation edges after applying with the foundation brush for deeper coverage and perfect blending.
2. Concealer Brush: Dense and tapered at the end to pick up maximum pigment and fit into creases/small areas.
3. Foundation Brush: Bristles designed to carry liquid effectively. Dense but fluffier than concealer brush for easier blending. Apply the foundation from the center of the face, outward.
4. Powder Brush: An essential brush for every makeup connoisseur. It’s light and fluffy, providing the ability to sweep setting powder over the face without disturbing the foundation. Additionally used to apply powder foundation itself and additional powder color for extra coverage.
5. Fan Brush: Provides a sheer sweep of powder over cheeks and other areas of the face. Ensures that a heavy dose of powder doesn’t settle into fine lines! Also heavily used for picking up flakes and powder from an eye shadow application (aka, cleaning up the face.)
6. Blush Brush: These are sometimes rounded and full, but typically angled. They deposit a fair amount of color on bristles, so build the color slowly and adjusting the angle depending on where you’d like to concentrate the blush. Because of the angled shape, it can fittingly be used to contour in place of an angled contour brush.
7. Brow Brush: Short and angled, with fairly stiff bristles. It allows for precise control while filling in brows with powder or cream. Light strokes that mimic natural hairs are ideal.
8. Angled Eye Shadow Brush: The soft, but dense, bristles and angled shape makes the brush ideal for blending color in the crease of the eye. Load up the angled tip and sweep along the crease of the eye to deposit color and blend into the eyelid.
9. Eye Shadow Brush: Short and fluffy bristles that round at the top to provide excellent color deposit and blending ability. This is the first brush you should be using when applying eye makeup to deposit the overall shadow color.
10. Blending Eye Shadow Brush: Unlike the angled shadow brush, it is dome-shaped and fluffy. Perfect for lending shadow and creating perfect smoky eyes.
11. Eyeliner Brush: Basically looks like the angled brow brush, but the bristles are much softer and finer! Use with gel, liquid or powder formula of eyeliner and create a precise line. It’s your friend if you like a good cat eye.
12. Smudge Brush: A foam dome tip that’s slightly flattened. It can also be dense, short, ultra-soft bristles. Either one allows to gently soften harsher lines to create the ultimate smoky eye.
13. Brow Comb: Can be a mini-comb with a bristle brush on one side or a stiff spiral. you can comb out either your brushes or your lashes with these bad boys.
14. Lip Brush: Thin, small and soft bristles. The brush itself is usually small to allow for precise lining of the lips.

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Nataliya Ogle

Founder

Nataliya Ogle likes making sure others live to their full potential. She publishes articles on her primary website styletomes.com and works as a freelance writer for other women's interest sites. Her physical body is in New York but her presence can almost always be found online. The internet is her first love.