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

Hi everyone, I just wanted to so a quick post about a couple of little hauls I recently received (yay!).

I ordered some foundation samples, eyeshadow samples and a glow sample from Dreamworld Minerals. I’ve already potted the samples (I forgot to take swatches) So, I’ll have to dig them up and do a little review later (I will say this though, I really like thier luna foundation)

I also ordered a bunch of brushes from Coastal Scents:

• Deluxe Buffer Brush- Very soft, but the hairs are kinda “floppy”, would be good for bronzers.
• Italian Badger Round Crease Brush- I like this little brush, soft, very similar to thier old Picture Perfect Shadow Blending Brush,
• Pink Blending Fluff Brush- Very smelly, soft, a lot larger than I thought it would be.
• Flawless Face Chisel Blush Brush, soft, hairs look like they will “fray out” easier, smaller than I thought it would be
• Pink Oval Fluff Shadow Brush- Very soft, Haven’t tried yet.
• Pink Oval Synthetic Concealer Brush- Very soft, Haven’t tried yet.
• Italian Badger Chisel Powder Brush- Soft, I really like this one.

I’ll have to review them better after I’ve tried them. I also received a few samples of thier Paradise micas, I have to say they are some gorgeous colors, and can be used straight as a multi-use pigment. Here is a photo of the three I’ve tried.

From left to right Paradise Tropic Bronze, Paradise Blush Rose, and Paradise Sand.

At Shoppers Drugmart they have a few new products from Quo for the summer, they have a few “baked” Bronzers that resemble the MAC MSFs, but after swatching aren’t pigmented at all, and the sparkles were too chunky. I did fall in love with their True Skin Foundation, although it’s not very good as a foundation it is excellent as a primer.

Last but not least, is my favourite haul item, my new traincase. OK I know it’s not a professional traincase, but it works great, was under $20 and is washable. It is a fishing tackle box. Here are some photos of it in action:

This model is the Plano Guide Series 3-Tray. If you are looking for something a little more colorful, you can try your local craft store. Plano has come outwith a new line of craft storage solutions that look perfect for Makeup storage (unfortunately I can’t seem to find them in my area, but others ate having luck at Joanne’s) . Check out the “Grab and Go systems” for a more portable storage solution, or if you have a vanity I LOVE the “Desktop stacker” and the “Swivel Stacker”(under the heading “products”> then “workstation organization.” If you are creative, you can try using spray paint made for plastics to change the color, you can also use stencils to further decorate it (think pink leopard print <—I might just do that one <rarrr!>)

I’m not sure if you’ve all heard, but I must be living under a rock because homehow I’ve managed to miss all of the hype over the Coastal Scents eyeshadow pallets. According to the reviews, they seem to have good color payoff, and decent staying power. See some of the video reviews on the Coastal Scents website to get get a better idea of the product. Now, it doesn’t look as if they are pure mineral makeup, they do contain talc and parabens, so they are probably closer to traditional makeup than mineral, but for the price of $19.95 they seem like a great deal, especially if you are looking to try out different looks.

Right now they are out of stock, but will be getting more on Thurs May 22, order early, because it sounds like they had quite a rushon them when they first released them fro purchase. While your browsing don’t forget to check out the brushes, they have some extraordinary deals on the cosmetic brushed at Coastal Scents.

On another note, I finally broke me “no-buy” fast last week and ordered a couple of new things. I ordered some foundation samples from Dreamworld Cosmetics and 2 new brushes from Coastal Scent, the deluxe buffer brush (sable belnd) and the italian badger round crease brush (I loved my badger buffer brush so much that I had to try another badger brush). I’ll post reviews as soon as I recieve them.  Yay for breaking my fast!