Today I'd like to review a limited edition set of Real Techniques brushes, which I managed to get quite cheaply using different loyalty points and discounts.
I generally like Real Techniques brushes and am assured of their high quality, but this little set turned out to be a miss for me.
I am aware that these brushes have received a number of favourable reviews and what's more many girls have mentioned them in their monthly favourites but I sometimes feel that the Pixiwoos are becoming some kind of cult personas and whatever they touch turns to gold. Much as I love both ladies, I don't think this always needs to be true.
The set consists of three white-handled duo-fibre brushes. All three of them look very elegant and are high quality as far as their appearance is concerned, by which I mean that they are very well made, nothing is chipped or broken and also they don't shed. However, these remind me so much of the much cheaper ELF stippling brushes, not as far as shape is concerned, of course, but I'm thinking fibres and the general execution of the idea of a brush.
As I've said before, there are three brushes in the set: a face brush, a contour brush and an eye brush, which I'd like to discuss individually.
The first one is the face brush, which is the best one in the collection. This is a special purpose brush, so if you're building your first brush kit, skip this one and get something more versatile. The bristles of this brush aren't dense, but although soft and not prickly they remain sturdy. There's something slightly rustly about the bristles. The brush is meant to dust a very light and sheer layer of powder when you don't want to dull your foundation. Perfect for holiday season when you usually aspire to look quite natural and avoid overly powdered looks.
The second brush is very similar in shape, but much smaller. Just as the name says, this brush is perfect for contouring, although I prefer denser, tapered brushes for. I use this brush to apply cream blushes by patting the product onto my cheeks instead of using circular blending motions. It can also be used to highlight subtly. Again, not the brush you need to get in the first place, but a very good choice anyway.
The eye brush is the one I bought the whole set for. It looked like such a nice blending brush to be used for a light wash of colour, with cream products in particular. And this is the one that decided about my unfavourable opinion about the whole set.
This brush is made of exactly the same bristles as the other two, but the proportions are different. The white ones, cut to about 2cm length loose their elasticity and become stiff and prickly. Very unpleasant on the eyelid. What's more, with the bristles being so rare the brush fails to pick any product. It could be used to apply a sheer wash of colour if it did so evenly and did a better blending job. All eyeshadows, both cream and powder, apply unevenly and patchily and using this brush is is not pleasant at all. Of course you may find millions of other uses for this brush like applying highlighter etc, but a god eye brush it is not.
All in all, although I do appreciate the idea of offering a brush for every purpose, I don't think this brush set is what everyone needs in their collections. While I do use the first two brushes when I need them, the last one is so bad I can't find any use for. Normally I would be 66% satisfied with such a set if I hadn't bought it specifically to get a nice synthetic eye brush. This was a limited edition set, but it's widely available everywhere, so I conclude that it either didn't sell so well or it wasn't so limited after all.
Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.
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