Brushing Away with Coastal Scents 22 piece Brush Set

Being new to the whole makeup scene a girl can do loads of research online, talk to the pros or take a chance on an item. I tend to do all three. But in this case I went with my gut instinct. I saw it, I wanted it, it was mine. Now I did have a few nice brushes from E.L.F but not a brush roll or the variety included in the Coastal Scents 22 piece brush set. At US$35 plus vat and shipping it was still a good price for all those brushes and the roll.

Ok let’s get started, so the brush roll is this matte black leatherette material with the coastal scents logo imprinted on it. It folds over three times and has two magnetic snaps to keep it close. Inside there is a nylon type material that has the spaces for holding the brushes and a flap to protect the brush heads.



Brush rolls looks like a large clutch. Closed dimensions of 7” (L) X 9.5”(H)



Open roll dimensions of 24.5”(L) X 9.5”(H)

Now onto my brush story!

1.       Fan Brush: Made of synthetic hair. Can be used for sweeping loose eye-shadow off the face, light application of blush. This one doesn’t get much use from me, just love playing with it.

2.       Powder brush: This is made of synthetic hair. It’s soft and gives a nice light coverage of powder. Looks like a big stippling brush though with a round head. The white parts of the brush need the good old elbow grease when washing to get the stains out. I had some shedding of bristles after my first wash though and some of the black fibers were sticking out so I had to reshape the brush and pull out stray fibers.

3.       Flat stippling brush: Synthetic hair and again very soft brush. Love this one for foundation and also use this for packing on powder.

4.       Round powder brush: Synthetic hair and looks like a dual fiber brush. Although its name suggests it use for powder I use this one more for light blush application. Just like the powder brush the white brush hairs are a bit more difficult to get cleaned and looking white again.

5.       Angle blush brush: Made of goat hair and makes applying blush a breeze. Actually I think this brush is the reason for my learning to apply blush properly so much so that my face looks boring without my blush. This one gets used every day. When washed it does have that funny wet hair smell but then again it is real goat hair after all! 

6.       Foundation brush: It’s a fiber hair brush, works well but I prefer the flat top stippling one for foundation or just the good old wedge.

From left to right: Powder, flat top stippling, round powder, angle blush & foundation brushes

7.       Large shadow brush: Pony hair. Really good brush for persons with larger eyes. Can also be used as a shader brush. I use this one on my cousin since my eyes are a bit on the small side!

8.       Concealer brush: Nylon hair. I don’t need to use concealer (thanks to good genes and God) so this brush doesn’t get much use. Standard concealer brush though.

9.       Doe foot blender brush: Pony hair. Honestly I don’t know what to use this one for. (Note to self: go do some research on this)

10.       Dome Shadow brush: Pony hair. My love! It a stiff dome brush great for applying colour to the outer V and soft sweeping. You can really darken the area.

11.       Dome Blender brush: Pony hair. This one compliments the dome shadow brush to sweep the colour softly into the crease from the outer V.

From left to right: large shadow, concealer, doe foot, dome shadow & dome blender brushes

12.       Blender brush: Pony hair. Well as the name implies it’s good for blending softly but I do prefer the dome blender for blending out harsh lines since this blender brush is a bit too big for my small eyes.

13.       Pointed blender brush: Pony hair. This one had me really excited since it looked like a good dupe for the limited edition MAC 226 brush but after using for a while and washing it’s not as pointed as it was when I first got it. It now looks closer to the dome blending brush. Boohoo! 

14.       Brow brush: Pony hair. This one gets daily use to apply my highlight colour to my brow-bone. I sometimes use it as a short shader brush on the lid.

15.       Detail concealer brush: Fiber hair. Like I said before I don’t use much concealer but this one like the concealer brush (brush 7 above) is good for apply concealer to spot areas. This one is about 2/3 the size of the regular concealer brush. I started using this one to apply my primer to the entire eye area instead of sticking my fingers into my NYX primer pot.

16.       Medium shadow brush: Pony hair. Another brush that gets daily use since its size makes it great for my small eyes to apply colour to the lid. You can softly blend with it as well.

17.       Detail shadow brush: Pony hair. A cutie pie! Used to apply highlight to tear duct area.

18.       Lip brush: Pony hair. Now this one confused me as a lip brush. It works ok to apply lip colour being small but there is no pointed tip to really define the lip. I’m using this as another detail shadow brush since it has a similar shape.

19.       Large liner/ brow brush: Nylon hair

20.       Medium liner/ brow brush: Nylon hair

21.       Small liner/ brow brush: Nylon hair

All the liner brushes have very precise points. The small liner gets the most use for gel eyeliners to the top lash line and for eye shadow application to define the eyebrows.

22.       Smudger sponge: Rubber based. Just your standard smudger sponge for well smudging the eyeliner in cases where you don’t want a harsh line.

Overall I really think this set is worth it for a makeup lover. The price is excellent, minimal hairs shedding and does a great job. The only thing I didn’t like was that there are no numbers or names of the brushes on the actual brushes, they are simply branded with the words coastal scents. So it can get a bit confusing for what is the intended purpose of each brush. Besides that I would totally buy this again. And I am but as a gift for a friend who fell in love with this set!

XOXO

Naomi