Beauty Review: Real Techniques Brushes

Happy Sunday everyone. I'm here enjoying a low-key afternoon at home listening to Jak FM, a local radio station at Jakarta. I stream it online every time I miss home, and spending  Chinese new year without family around really triggers the feeling. 

I gotta admit, I have more brushes that I actually need. I have, slowly but surely, collected so many brushes but I don't regret it since I got to find amazing brushes that work for me.

I first saw Real Techniques brushes at Ulta. I was attracted to its vibrant color and unique design. I then discovered beauty youtubers that now have contributed to my beauty learning process use these brushes.

Real Techniques is a brand created by Samanta Chapman, a makeup artist from UK. You might have seen her and her sister, Nic, on their channel called pixiwoo. They both are amazing makeup artists and I really enjoy watching their tutorials and totally recommend them. 

Powder Brush

This is the very first RT brush that I bought. I was obsessed with large fluffy brush for powder application and the synthetic bristles are very soft and great quality. I also like the idea that the brush can stand on its own although it makes the handle bigger and bulkier to store. 

Blush Brush

The first RT brush that really caught my eyes at Ulta. I saw it in action so many times especially on Tanya's (pixi2woo) tutorials. Although it's called a blush brush, it really can act as different things. The fluffy bristle makes it easy to apply powder and its slightly domed/tapered curve makes it possible to do contour. The bottom surface is flat so the brush can also stand by itself. 

Expert Face Brush

I honestly bought this because I thought it would be a great substitute for my Sigma kabuki brush that I always use to apply my foundation. Nevertheless, it fails to do the job as I expected. It's still pretty quality brush, though. Don't get me wrong. It just doesn't work for liquid nor powder foundation application for me. The bristles are very dense and hard so it is a good brush to buff and blend creme products, especially creme blush or bronzer. I saw pixiwoo uses this brush to apply Chanel creme bronzer which is really gorgeous on skin, at least from what I saw.

Core Collection Set

These brushes come in an inventive case that you can convert to a stand and is great for travel. I personally still prefer my Sigma travel cylinder case, but it is more space-friendly.  This set comes with 4 brushes. 

From left to right:

-Contour brush

-Pointed foundation brush

-Detailer brush

-Buffing brush

I have to say I'm not really pleased with the set as a whole. I love the buffing brush which works great for foundation. It is less dense than the Sigma kabuki brushes, but it does the job well to blend liquid foundation. But, it works even better for my Bare Minerals foundation which I have been loving lately for more natural look and fast/light application. The flat top and slightly dense bristles works great to buff the loose powder and blend it for even application. 

The contour brush is good to contour your nose especially, but I also find it useful to set my under-eye concealer with powder. The size tapered shape is perfect to reach the slightly hollow areas on your face. 

As for the rest of the brushes in the set, detailer and pointed foundation brush, I don't really use them much. I especially don't know what I can do with a pointed foundation brush which for me comes in really hard and plastic-y material. 

Starter Set

The starter set comes with 5 eye brushes and the similar inventive kit with the set mentioned previously. 

From left to right:

-Deluxe crease brush

-Base shadow brush

-accent brush

-pixel-point eyeliner brush

-Brow brush

The shadow brushes are relatively large for my taste. The deluxe crease brush is supposed to blend your eyeshadow, but I find a better use out of it which is to blend my under-eye concealer. I see the Pixiwoo ladies do it a lot. They use MAC brushes instead of Real Techniques brushes when they do their eye makeup. So, I don't really understand why, but I don't think these brushes can work as well as my Sigma ones considering its larger sizes. 

Overall, Real Techniques are really great quality brushes especially their face brushes. I love their individual products but not so much with their sets. It would be awesome if they come up with updated collection especially for their eye brushes. As for now, I will continue using their brushes especially for my eyes but not so much for the original purpose. The eye brushes work great for applying concealer, but I've never tried to apply eyeshadows before because I'm already turned off by the size. I've imagined how messy it will be for my relatively small eyes. 

Thank you for reading. I hope you find my review useful.

Have any of you tried RT brushes before? What do you think? 

=)