Sam Donald

www.SamDonald.com

As we all know, you have to have great products to achieve a great look, but you also need good tools behind you to get soft yet clean lines, without fallout and wasteage.

I’m a brush junkie.  I find it irresistible to walk past a cosmetics counter without having a good look at their brush range and buying at least one.

I have a brush kit with around 100 brushes in it (yes, I can get through the whole lot on one wedding alone!) and every brush is loved, cherished and needed!

Anyone with a sense of the mathematics will know that those brushes add up to quite a lot, given that I have 9 foundation brushes worth between £25 and £35 each and around 60 eye brushes ranging in price from £10-£25 each.

Okay, so that’s a lot of money, and in no way did I buy them all in one go, who’s got that sort of money?

Consider the new makeup artist straight out of training with 6 brushes that the college supplied, not enough to do even one face, let alone 8, and no time to clean brushes between because you have a deadline to meet.

So do you spend your first ‘wages’ on building up your brush kit, or do you spend it on products for your kit?  Which came first, the great product with the ropey brush to apply or the good brush but the dodgy cheap makeup that won’t last more than an hour or two before it’s vanished?

Well both actually!

You put 50% aside for makeup purchases, 25% for brushes and the other 25% for advertising, insurance, tax and the ever faithful sundries list of disposables.

Until recently it was almost impossible to get decent disposable makeup brushes, yes, you could get mascara wands and lip brushes and those horrendous little sponge applicators (you know, the ones that look like they’ve come out of a play kit for a 5 year old), but nothing worth talking about.

Nowadays it’s a different story, and ThePromMakeupShop.com are leading the way with a great set of makeup brushes, from powder to eyes, lips to brows,  including not Sponge applicators, but Foam, far far better for product application and then a lovely soft brush for blending.

And if you’re very new to the industry, and want to start the right way, with good hygiene practices, but not sure which brushes you might like, you could try the Pro Kit with 2 each of the various different eye and lip brushes, plus 2 each of the blush and contour brushes.  It’s only £9.99, and a couple of those with you will keep you going for at least 4 faces, earning you some more money to invest in your kit and brush kit, and also earning you a great reputation for maintaining high standards of hygiene.

I’ve used all these brushes, and you know what?  They’re really rather good!  I was pleasantly surprised, nothing synthetic or spongey about these brushes, just a good quality disposable brush that you know will deliver on application whilst keeping the diseases and germs at bay!

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that I am a clean queen as far as makeup hygiene is concerned.  If you’re in the dark, just take a moment to read the Safe Beauty article at the top of this page.

In the last 2 weeks, I have been the makeup artist at 4 weddings (total number of faces 21) and attended a Leukaemia Research Fundraiser offering makeovers and the like (total faces made over – 8).

That’s a lot of faces, a lot of makeup, and most importantly a lot of mascara wands used!!  Particularly as I average 4 mascara wands per client to avoid double dipping.

I was lucky enough to have an great supply of TheProMakeupShop.com’s wands at my disposal (I dread to think of the day that I may run out and not have some to hand at short notice, so I have a stockpile in my office!) and have given every brush a really good test run.

I don’t think there is a single brush that I disliked in there, and I used up every one of my ProMakeupShop brushes and had to resort to using my old American Imports, and yes, I wiped out a £19 Lancome mascara in the middle of the fundraiser when an American wand tip unscrewed itself into the barrel – this is unfortunately not a first time experience…

I could list all the wand types and tell you about them, but it’s probably faster for you to just pop over to the store and have a look for yourself and decide the types that you want to choose.

For me, I’ll be restocking with Long Tall Lucy, Shapely Shelly, Show Stopping Sam (of course!) and Particular Polly – this wand is brilliant at blending real lashes into false ones with a seamless finish.  It’s a shorter brush, but so so perfect!

If you’re unsure which brush to try, having had years of using those nasty little whitehandled wands, try the Magic 9 which has 3 each of the 9 wands and try them all out for yourself to discover your favourite girl!

Oh and at £4.75 for a packet of 25 brushes, these are a very reasonable price compared to the £3.99 you’d pay at your local wholesalers for 24 of the white wands, or £5.99+ shipping for 24 of the American screwtipped ones.