It’s that time again. Lumiere Cosmetics is offering a makeup brush prebuy. I’ve ordered their prebuy brushes before, and they are well worth the wait, the quality was top notch. The Prebuy will run from August 15th to October 15th 2011, with delivery slated for sometime in November. Check it out.

So, last week I visited the E.L.F. website to see what was new. Boy, they’ve been busy like well……elves. So many new things. The few things I have been wanting to try are; the studio cream eyeshadow, studio matte loose eyeshadow, studio angled contour brush, studio tinted moisturizer, Makeup mist and set, essentials eye crease brush and the studio stipple brush.

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The one thing that I get asked about most, is makeup brushes. It seems that anyone who isn’t a “makeup addict” is overwhelmed by the choices. But really putting together a useful makeup brush kit is easy! Really! You only need a few functional brushes to do your entire face, and they don’t have to cost a fortune either.

Here are my recommendations:

You only need 2 good brushes for your eyes, 1 small to medium fluff brush for eyeshadow, and one angled liner brush for your eyeliner, and blending shadow under your eye.  My faves are:

• ELF eyeshadow brush (it’s only $1!), it’s soft, dense, large enough to apply your all-over lid colour, and small enough to get in the crease, if you have a small crease go for the Defining eye brush.
• ELF studio small angled brush, it’s synthetic, so it keeps it’s shape. Great for lining with gel liners, or using eyeshadow to line your lover lash-line.

You need 2 brushes for your face, a foundation brush, and a blush brush.

• I love my MAC 116 blush brush, it a little pricey at almost $40 but will last you years if you treat it with love.
• A good reasonably priced foundation brush is the elf studio angled foundation brush.
• If you want to get fancy you can always get a concealer brush, elf studio concealer is a good inexpensive option.

The only other bushes you need is a lip brush and a brush for grooming you brows.

• You don’t have to get fancy with these two, you can pretty much use any stiff small brush as a lip brush, check out your dollar store and see if you can find a small makeup brush (sometimes you can find one that would be used as an eyeliner brush, think outside of the box) if you can’t find a good one I like the elf concealer brush (the $1 one, I find their lip brush a little too “floppy”). You can use a soft toothbrush to “brush” your brows, also if you search your Walmart or Target you can usually find a spoolie (looks like a mascara wand without the mascara) for pretty cheap, while you’re there check out the lip brushes as well they’re pretty cheap too!

When you bring home your brushes, the first thing you want to do is wash them. Then you just have to wash them about once a week. You can use baby shampoo, check out youtube, there are tonnes of recommendations on what soap to use, and how to clean them. You don’t want to get any water down the ferrule (the part that holds the bristles to the handle, usually metal) so remember to always keep the bristled pointing down. Here’s a great video to show you how: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjrbWrbapwE