It's Friday and I am excited, although spring break is almost over. The weather has been very nice and warm lately and I hope to get to the beach this weekend, if possible. As we all know, I have a weak spot for brushes and the ones I use mostly come from craft stores instead of makeup counters. I find them working as good as the later versions but a whole lot cheaper. As they are used in different types of medium (oil, water color, acrylic, etc), artist brushes are built to last. The one brand that stands out among the artist brushes is Loew-Cornell and I have a lot of them to apply makeup. While most makeup brushes can be found in your arts store, some of them actually originated from there as well. The spot detailer brush that I am going to show you is one example and yes, you can save your pretty dollars and get an artist brush instead.
Top-bottom: spot detailer brush and regular ultra round brushImage from Fur and Feathers Woodcarving
Normally, I line my eyes with a slanted taklon brush like this one from Coastal Scents or MAC 266. While the previous one gives me a thick line à la Amy Winehouse, the later one is too flimsy to even line my eyes properly. Using gel eyeliner is not even a technique, it is an art! While the end result is crisp and nice-looking, the process is too painful to master. Believe me, most times makeup artists prefer the regular pencil liner over the gel ones. It is very easy to mess up the gel liner application and once you make a mistake, it is very hard to correct.
After spending so many days (and nights) antagonizing over my less than perfect gel liner application skill, I finally came to a conclusion: it's not me, it's the brush that I used! So one day when I walked around Michael's and saw that spot detailer brush I showed above, I got this "aha moment" that Oprah talked about!
Seriously, this brush is the perfect fit for lining my eyes!
After spending so many days (and nights) antagonizing over my less than perfect gel liner application skill, I finally came to a conclusion: it's not me, it's the brush that I used! So one day when I walked around Michael's and saw that spot detailer brush I showed above, I got this "aha moment" that Oprah talked about!
Seriously, this brush is the perfect fit for lining my eyes!
You may think I'm kidding but it makes a whole lot of sense to me after seeing the brush. The one and only reason I mess up with gel liner is I do not see what I am doing when a brush looks like it's about to poke my eyeball out! However, the dental pick shape of the spot detailer brush allows me to gauge the process and I do not feel like being tortured anymore. The bristles are soft and dense enough to give me a smooth and fine line. My eyes actually look a lot like Angelina Jolie's instead of Amy Winehouse's when using this brush to make a cat-eye look.
The proof: Coastal Scents taklon liner brush makes a dark and chunky line (top) while my new love, the L-C spot detailer brush makes a soft line (bottom)Also, the spot detailer brush (or the tight liner brush) only holds enough material to make a short line. Therefore, you need to reload your brush and continue. That way you actually make less mistakes while lining your eyes.
Price: $4.99 at Michael's and you can always find a coupon online.
My rating: A+, go get it!
Actually, Sonia Kashuk used to have a similar brush for a while but all of the sudden it disappeared. Either it did not sell very well or Ms. Sonia K decided to axe it from the line up for something better, this type of brush is very good to use as a liner brush.
My brush collection in a jar
Price: $4.99 at Michael's and you can always find a coupon online.
My rating: A+, go get it!
Actually, Sonia Kashuk used to have a similar brush for a while but all of the sudden it disappeared. Either it did not sell very well or Ms. Sonia K decided to axe it from the line up for something better, this type of brush is very good to use as a liner brush.
My brush collection in a jarThis is when I know I have a problem, y'all! That jar is not big enough! Anyways, I'm going to show you what I have so far when we come back next week, ok?
I hope you'll have a nice weekend. Enjoy the weather and stay gorgeous!
Love,
Your Makeup Blogger
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subscribe to my feed. Thanks a lot!
I have a Loew-Cornell angled spot detailer too :) I got bored and rummaged through Pearl Arts and Crafts a while back, and picked one up.
ReplyDeleteIf it weren't for the fact that I don't have time to do gel liner every morning, I'd use it a lot more... but since I'm short on time, I stick to pencils almost exclusively these days. If I want a really precise line of eyeliner though, I'll use the angled spot detail to scrape some color off the pencil and apply.
Even though I'm a little OCD and weird about having my brushes match either, I make a rare exception for a couple art store brushes :P I love 'em!
Apparently Loew-Cornell also makes a good MAC 239 dupe, the 1/4" Maxine's Mop, I think. (Maybe it was the 1/2", I'm not sure.) I have the 1/4th inch, it's really good for packing on color and for loose/flaky pigments and Lustre eyeshadows, but that's not a texture I tend to work with very much anyway.
I also found something kind of similar to the MAC217, but it's not by Loew-Cornell; it's by some Russian brush company (Yarka?) and made from squirrel hair. Super soft and fluffy, but a little flimsy... good for blending though.
And finally, there's also a dupe for the MAC 205 - the mascara fan lash brush - that I also own. I believe it's made by Princeton Art & Brush. I think it comes in the 20/0 size? I very rarely ever use it, but it's SO CUTE.
Also, have you tried the Italian badger crease brush made by Crown Brush? Do you know how it compares to MAC's 219? I have two from Crown Brush and love them, and I'm thinking of getting a few more ;P
Hi May,
ReplyDeleteI love your comments: they are always long and full of details. This brush is the ish, it blows everything else out of the water and I can't believe it took me so long to get it. Maybe because of the price, 5 dollars isn't cheap for a tiny brush, but it's worth every pennies I spent.
Yeah, I got the LC 3/8 as well as the 1/4 and 1/2. Those are great brushes and I'm going to show you my brushes on Monday.
I'm actually looking for a fan brush although I don't think I'll use it. Thank you for the rec, May. I've never ordered anything from Crown Brush but I know Coastal Scents get their brushes from them. MAC 219 is one of my favorites, of course and I bet the badger hair feels much better on the skin than white goat hair.
I think they still sell the Sonia Kashuk one at Target by my house. I could be wrong... hehe~ I'm not good with fine point tip brush like that. I need a slanted one to do my eyes unfortunately. :X
ReplyDeleteHi Alyssa,
ReplyDeleteYeah, I came to Target yesterday and they still sell it, but not online anymore :) You need to give it a try, I think it's easier to use than the slanted one. I've never tried the flat liner brush though, so I can't tell.
I heard great things about the Loew Cornell brushes. Apparently a few of them are good dupes for MAC brushes. But unfortunately we only have a very small selection of Lowe-Cornell brushes here :(
ReplyDeleteYou have a very nice brush collection
Hi Gio,
ReplyDeleteL-C has the best artist's brushes in the world, I think. You can find some online art stores where they sell L-C brushes for cheap. Depending on the art store, some of them do not have a full stock of brushes either. The only Michael's in town has a relatively decent stock but some popular brushes are often sold out. I am going to post my brush collection entry today :)