I promised Nimphe, Karen and the rest of my readers that I would get this post our at the weekend, and boy am I glad I'm finally able to stick to my promises...

Only God knows why, but I'm on a high today: I'm listening to Roxette (don't laugh, they were the only thing that kept me alive during high-school), cuddling with my cat, eating fruit gums (I know, I know, I shouldn't be, but I just don't care right now...), and generally feel like I'm on top of the world.

Reasons? Here are a few:

• My job.
  Actually, the fact that I have one.
  No more nagging from my parents and my own conscience, no more self-loathing and hopelessness, and most importantly no more empty pockets. Life's good.
  
  
  
• Oh, and that we a have an extremely cool PC in our office with Windows 7. You know what I like best about Win7? Yep: StickyNotes. It's a lot of fun, extremely practical and useful, and just plain and simple cool.
  
  
• That I'm going to accompany my colleague to a trade fair in Nuremberg for a week in February, which gives me the opportunity to shop for a suitcase, a few sets of womens suits, shoes and other goodies.
  
  
• Music.
  
  
• The knowledge that if all goes well, I'll soon be the owner of another heap of Silk Naturals makeup.
  
  
• The sort of sunny-spell we're experiencing right now where I live.

Sorry for gushing and bragging as if it was Things I Love Thursday, but I just had to tell the world how happy I am for the first time in... well, a very long time.




Now, about those brushes: out of the 4 I'm going to review today there's only one I haven't managed to befriend yet, so I guess you can start guarding your pockets/purses/wallets or any other accessories you use to store your money in. ;)





Brushes like this one are also called stippling brushes which is not something you want to forget. What's "stippling" you ask? Well, allow me to explain.


In art stippling is when instead of strokes or lines you use an insane amount of small dots to create various degrees of shading. Take a look at this artist drawing a portrait to get the idea. You can use the same method to apply blush and achieve a really nice, natural effect, especially if you have to work with an intensely pigmented kind of powder.

Since brushes like this have a very thin head with a small amount hairs scattered on a relatively big surface, it's easy to use them as if they were a bunch of pointed paintbrushes joined together. Actually, this brush has two kinds of hair: one is short and black, and it is there to separate the other kind of hairs which are long and white, and which are the ones that'll pick up the blush and disperse it on your skin.

Ever since I bought it, it's been my favorite brush to apply my blushes with. You can, of course, use it as a regular brush and put on your blush with sweeping or circular motions, but in my opinion it's best to just "dot-sot-dot" all over your cheeks. It can also be used to apply liquid- or cream-foundation too, but since I don't use any of those, I wouldn't know how well a brush like this performs at that.

However, here's a girls who does: check out beechbum06's video on YouTube to see what I've been talking about in the past few minutes.

Silk Naturals' brush is $5.99 and is practically a steal when you consider how useful it is. (I actually had store credit with SN at the time I bough it so it was "free" for me, but I don't think it takes away from my objectivity as I still had to pay for shipping and all the other things I bought together with it.) It's a bit different from the average stippling brush I think: most of them seem pretty big in diameter while this one is only about 2 cm. It's probably a bit weird for people who're used to larger brushes, but let me tell you that this one's perfectly usable if you're willing to give it a chance. In fact, I think it's much better this way, because it allows for more precise application and better control over where you put your blush.

All in all, I totally recommend this brush: it's a cheap alternative for MAC brushes and it does the job perfectly. It does shed more than an EDM brush and washing does bring out some black gunge, but that stops after a while and then you have a perfect blush brush.

Rating: a solid 5 out of 5





I know, I know: it looks very unkempt upon first glance.

Even upon second glance, to be honest.

Fine, all right, whatever... It does look disheveled and tousled no matter how many times you look at it.

It doesn't really matter though. I had thought it was an eyeshadow brush and as far as I can remember it was advertised as one, but I've been know for going off the beaten path and using things in a different way that they were originally intended to. So I use this as a concealer brush and it works perfectly that way. It's small, it covers nothing else but the zit I'm trying to hide, and when you use it like this, it really doesn't matter how rumpled it is.

It retails for $1.99 at Coastal Scents and is a great buy if you want to conceal blemishes but find concealer brushes too big and clumsy.

Rating: 4 out of 5





Yeesh, photographing brushes is just like photographing your face: the camera catches every little detail and flaw you'd think doesn't normally show...

Okay, this one is a solid little brush, and since I've had it, I haven't once used it to apply lipstick with.

However, it's perfect for applying dark, matte eyeshadows to the corner of your eyes and to contour your lids with. In one word, it was meant to assist you in creating a gorgeous smoky eye. Using it is like drawing with a pencil, but it's never once rough on the delicate skin around my eyes. It allows for precise application, and because of how thin it is, it's great to line your eyes with too providing you're using eyeshadow (preferably dry) and want to blend it a bit.

It's one of my favorite brushes ever, so I encourage you to get it for yourself too. For only $1.99 it's a great deal!

Rating: 5 out of 5





I guess this is what I get if I don't read the product description... I know it's written there in plain black and white that it has a 5/8 inch hair span and it says "big", but I honestly didn't expect it to be THIS BIG...!

That's completely my fault though, so I'm not going to blame Coastal Scents for my own laziness and stupidity. But honestly, what can you do with a brush that big? Me, I'm a fairly tiny* person, so not much obviously.

* Tiny as in "vertically": I'm 155 cm tall. I'm still working on the "horizontally" part...

Anyway, I honestly can't tell you much about this one as I've only used it once or twice since I got it last spring. It's very dense, soft and pliable when I run my thumb over it, and I have a hunch that it's great to blend eyeshadow with, I just can't seem to figure out how to make it work on my eyes. Oh well, perhaps one day I'll experiment with it a bit, but for now it doesn't excite me that much.

It was $2.99, by the way.

Rating: 3 out of 5 ('3' only because it's a very well-made, good quality brush...)


Next post? Soon, I can tell you that much. ;) Topic? Silk Naturals lippies most likely with swatches. Also, I may just start swatching all my SN and Pure Luxe eyeshadows too. I've had them for ages and I still haven't managed to churn out a post about them...