As any makeup artist will tell you, it’s not just about the product, but it’s about the tools too.  You can take the most amazing formulation of eyeshadow, but if you’ve only got fingers or those nasty bristly stubby brushes that we all get given by our grannies, there’s only so much you can do.  Yes, you can do smudgy smokey looks, and a barely there look, but you can’t get clean lines, or well blended looks. 

For me, as a self confessed brushaholic, I can’t get enough of brushes.  They get strapped around my waist at work, and each one is loved in its own right, for its own unique characteristics.

In fact, while prepping for this article last week, I actually took some pictures of my brushes while I was cleaning them.  I don’t do things like that!!  I’m a professional for goodness sake, but the love affair I have with brushes is one that I can’t put into words, so it was easier to show the Forum girls in pictures…

If you want to have a look, please feel free to visit the forum here for the thread…

I have a few reasons for having a massive collection of brushes.  It’s partly because I can’t walk past a counter with brushes on display, without stopping to buy.  It’s also because I try and take care of my brushes, so it’s very rare that I have to throw any away, I just keep adding to the collection.  I’m also very particular about hygiene, I don’t do double dipping, its disgusting and unnecessary, but then, if I’ve got a lot of people’s faces to make up, in a short amount of time, there is no way that I have time to clean and sanitise my brushes between faces, so I use and dump and move onto the next brush.

However, getting back to the brushes themselves, here’s a run down of some of my favourite brush brands and brushes.

MAC.  You can’t live without them.  The ever present 217 for blending and 219 for precise lash-work and blended contouring.  Most new makeup artists start their first makeup shopping expeditions at the MAC counter, and I’d certainly suggest that its a good place to start.  To be able to touch and feel brushes, and even ask if you can have a play, is ideal on a brush-shopping trip.

Smashbox.  Their eye definers are sharp and precise, and their large contouring brushes give an artist a really easy time, even on eyes that are lacking in natural socket lines.  Smashbox make some very good sets of brushes.  Both with long and short handled.  They do have different handles for various seasonal lines (I think I’m sporting their trademark red, glittered red, bronze, ice white and pink in my kit!), but they’re exceptional value for money

Ruby and Millie.  The best concealer brush I’ve ever found.  Its so very very precise, that there’s little need for blending colour edges.  Their eyeshadow brushes are an excellent range that are available both pro length and personal length.  Ideal because not everyone is a makeup artist using long handled brushes, but we pros like to use high street products just as much as the next girl.

Lancome.  I first fell in love with lancome brushes when I was given some as part of a Gift With Bonus pack.  I loved them so much, that I went out and bought the full size versions just a few days later, and am currently testing out their large powder brush – so far, so good.  Phew!

Estee Lauder.  An amazing fat flat concealer brush that is very very good for larger concealing requirements (port wine stains, birth marks etc), and their large powder brush is so soft and fluffy that it feels like kitten fur on your face.  Every client I’ve tried this on has commented at just how lovely it feels!

Clinique.  Very pretty brushes, with clear handles.  you just can’t go wrong.  Classy and high standard, as you’d expect from Clinique.  I like their eyeshadow and powder brushes over all, but my own personal makeup bag is housing 3 or 4 eyeshadow brushes that I’ve had for about 10 years or so…  Still going strong!

TQ Manicure from Murrays.  I’ve recently discovered these, and they are a gorgeous collection of brushes, with the most divine powder brush.  Both fat (as you’d expect), but flatter on the width, this ‘oval’ brush is stunning.  It is the easiest brush I’ve ever used to contour cheekbones with.  My only grumble with the TQ brushes is that their handles start narrow at the ferrule, but then get larger and fatter, and in the case of the Powder brush, it ends up being around an inch wide.  I can’t fit them in my brush belt.  Oh no!  Ideal for standing at a makeup workstation, or on a dressing table, but just can’t fit them in my kit.

Murrays Manicure.  MAF is being won over, slowly but surely, by Miners.  Already fans of the nail polishes and the lipglosses, when these Hot Pink handled brushes arrived in the MAF offices, I didn’t hesitate to whip them out of the packaging straight away.  As you can see, the foundation and powder brushes are sitting happily next to my MAC and Bobbi Browns, and are most definitely a talking point, but I’m currently discovering just how good the spoolie is, and will report back in due course!

Louise Young.  What would we do without Louise Young?  Probably resort to fingers and thumbs.  For me, her brushes make my kit perfect.  In the words of Jerry Maguire; “you complete me”.  Well, these really do.  Okay, so I will keep shopping, but I don’t need to.  Not now.  With every conceivable brush you would need, and every brush you don’t know you need, but when you’ve got it, can’t do without, Louise Young, as a makeup artist herself, has thought of everything.  I’m not sure which brush I love the most.  The Foundation brushes, the precise eyeliners, the eye definers….?

Sam Donald

www.SamDonald.com

Having recently broken the handle of my current makeup kit case, thus making it impossible to carry, only wheel (sounds good, impossible to get in and out of my car, up or down stairs/steps etc), www.Beauty-Boxes.com very kindly sent me a Sahar to keep me going.

I was a little sceptical that my huge kit would fit into the drawers, but I am very impressed.  Its like a mini TARDIS!  The drawers are much deeper than you expect, and much longer than they first appear.   I have a fairly ‘average’ size kit for an experienced artist, so its not a small selection of products, there are many many foundations, dozens of lip products, and don’t start me on how many single eyeshadows there are!

I managed to fit my entire product collection into the 3 drawers, and made use of the depth of the largest to stand my cleansers and skincare emergency products, plus foundations and lip products on their ends, so that I could see the names/shade numbers easily; there’s nothing worse than having to rummage through half a dozen products to find the one you’re looking for.

It did leave the whole of the top section free.  There are dividers in there, though I’ve chosen to house my quarter roll in there (where I keep disposables, pencils etc), my brush roll (which has in excess of 150 brushes, so that’s not exactly small), and my A5 sized filofax that is bursting at the seams. 

There was still plenty of room there, so all my false eyelashes went into one of the spare sections, my 3 bottles of anti bacterial hand spray went into another.  My bottles of brush cleaner was also in the main section.  I used the top zipper part to put spare packets of disposables in there (its my worst nightmare to forget to fill up my disposables!).  there’s a very handy slim side pocket too, where I stashed some spare packets of tissues (never be without if you work in the Bridal industry!) and a spare mirror.

In a working environment, I’ve always preferred a table top style case, where I can have my products at a reasonable height and able to see them all at a glance.  After a few test runs, I found that leaving this case on the floor was the best option.  Why?  I simply pulled out the 3 drawers and put them at table height, and worked out of them like that.  Instant products to hand, instant tidy away.

There is still plenty of room (shopping anyone?) and whilst it is a little heavy, that’s down to the number of products rather than the case itself.  The trolley makes your life easier, and the bag itself has extremely well stitched handles for lifting, which was the down fall of my previous case (and others before it!).  It fitted very easily behind the drivers seat of the car, which had been pushed back for the 6ft 2inches worth of husband who’d been sat in it before me, and there was most definitely plenty of room when I pulled the seat forwards for 5ft4 inch me!

All in all, this is to date, the best upright trolley case that I’ve used.

Sam Donald

www.SamDonald.com

So, you have the makeup, you have the brushes, but where do you keep it all?

All makeup artists work in different ways, out of different kits and like different things.

For me, I like to be able to open a case or a drawer and see all the cosmetics at a glance, but I know that many of the MAF makeup artists prefer to work out of one large space, with clear pencil cases inside, housing perhaps all their bottles of foundation, or all their pencils.

But what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another, so therefore, what is the ‘best makeup case’?

Well, there simply isn’t an answer for that, but Beauty-Boxes.com are wise enough to know that also, and have a huge selection of cases to choose from.  I couldn’t tell you how many different cases there are, but there really is something for everyone.

For me, with the need to see everything at a glance, I chose the Emerald trolley case, with it’s opening drawers, extra boxes to carry pencils and disposables, plus a detachable cantilever case on top.  Particularly ideal when I went to my brother’s wedding 250 miles from my own home, with a premature baby and a bride to make up!  Ideal to just pop the bits in that I needed, and keep it all perfectly stored.

If you don’t need the cantilever, but do want the drawers, try the Monteray, it’s almost exactly the same, just without the cantilever on top!

Both of these are wheeled, which as any makeup artist who’s worked in a hotel will tell you, wheels are a must – there are some very very very long corridors out there….!

However, what if you prefer to have your products in separate smaller cases inside a larger one?  Or perhaps need something lightweight as you zip around the London Underground going from shoot to shoot?  The Alberta is probably the one I’d suggest!

But what about for you, for your own makeup stash?  Maybe you don’t really want your husband/boyfriend to know just how much makeup you really have…. Any one of the cantilever makeup cases is like a Tardis, with hidden depths, making a small case the aladdin’s cave for you, holding so so much makeup, but in such a small space!

There are so many cases to choose from, whether you want it for yourself, for your mobile makeup business, perhaps you’re a mobile hair stylist or nail technician.  There is something for everyone.

I was at Olympia recently, at the beauty trade show, and Beauty Boxes had a large stand there.  What interested me, on the morning of the first day was that many of the attendees flocked straight to the Beauty Boxes stand, and made their purchase quickly, so as not to miss out.

When you’re prepared to buy a bulky item at 10am to then take it round a trade fayre for the next 7 hours shows that you have done your research and are prepared to buy quality.

Sam Donald

www.SamDonald.com

Since I became a MUA I’ve always used a MAC 190 as my main foundation brush and always been pretty happy with that. I have 2 of these, along with about 4 others (Mac and other brands) but have never really been 100% happy with any of them. I’ve found that over the past few months my 190 isn’t performing as well as I’d like it to and last month the head came away from the handle and that was the final straw…

I remember seeing Sam Chapman using a Louise Young foundation brush in one of her tutorials and I liked the look of it, it looked much bigger than the MAC 190 and I liked the idea of using a bigger brush so I treated myself to one.

I’m so pleased with this brush and feel that it out-performs the MAC 190 by a large margin, the bristles are much softer and less dense than the MAC and application-wise it feels amazing and gives such a stunning finish, I will definitely be going on to buy more Louise Young Brushes.

Lauren Sally

www.laurensally.co.uk

I have used these lashes before when I lived in London and they were readily available from my local beauty wholesalers, but it was nice to be able to try them again.

You get two pairs of lashes in a pack for £2.99 which is excellent value. I wore these today with the glue that came with them. I’m not a fan of the white glue that comes with lashes as I tend to use Duo glue, but I put them on with the glue supplied and as expected, the glue was awful. It took a long time to dry and you could still see the places where the glue had dried.

For the lashes themselves, I was very impressed. Given their price, they are excellent value for money. They are quite firmly stuck to the box they come in so you have to lift them out carefully with tweezers in order not to ruin their shape. You can also trim them if you find they’re a little bit full on for you and they look quite natural when they’re on while still giving a full lash line.

I intended to wear these all day but after about five hours, I was begging to take them off. However I think that’s more down to me not liking strip lashes on myself for any length of time rather than the lashes themselves. They stayed firmly in place.

A big downside is not being able to find them in any stores near me and only very limited stockists online.

Ease of use: 4/5 (Lashes) 1/5 (glue)
Availability: 2/5
Quality: 4/5
Value for money: 5/5
I would definitely use these lashes again and I have in fact ordered some for my kit.

Rochelle O’Brien

www.RochelleOBrien.com

Ruby & Millie have got a fantastic selection of makeup brushes, in both pro length and makeup-bag length.

In my own makeup bag I have the large eyeshadow brush, for sweeping nude base over my lid and for blending colours together.  The medium eyeshadow brush is a really versatile one.  I’ve got about 5 of these for layering various colours onto my lids.

In my pro kit, I have even more!  Numerous large eyeshadow brushes, a selection of the medium ones which I use for not just eyeshadow application, but I have some dedicated for concealer.  I don’t use the concealer brush just for concealer though, this is a really nice brush for fine detailed lines around the eyes, perfect for on the spot wrinkle disguising and absolutely perfect for precision tattoo coverage!

The eyeliner brush is a little too thick for tiny thin lines around eyes, but is good for adding definition if you like a thicker look, the concealer brush is better for the thinnest of thin lines.

And definitely get your hands on a smudge brush, dip it into a long lasting liquid/cream eyeliner and smudge it on.  Same long lasting effect, but with a softer line than you’d get with more traditional application methods!

Get yourself to Boots or Boots.com because they’re on 3 for 2 right now!

Sam Donald

www.SamDonald.com

This is such a great product!  Makeup Artists the world over are well used to ‘stippling’ techniques, using a stiff tipped brush and dabbing the makeup on.  Well, this ups the game and brings the old technique into the modern age.

You use the sponge (which is a very very dense sponge, we’re not talking bath sponge here!) by bouncing it on the skin and rolling where necessary!

It does give a really good finish, for me the only downside is that obviously you only use it on one person, for hygiene reasons, but it does look dirty as soon as you dip it in the foundation, which is a bit of a shame.

I do like the Beauty Blender, and will certainly be adding it to my kit for the future, at a little over £14 from Just Beauty Direct, it’s a good price for a good product!

Beauty Blender Training Video

Sam Donald

www.SamDonald.com

Every woman has something in their makeup bag or medicine cupboard that she pulls on whenever there is a cut, bruise, bash, blemish, dry patch or irritant etc.  For years, I’ve used Virgin Vie’s Guardian Angel balm, but I’ve not been as keen on it since they took it out of the tub and put it in a tube, and seemed to change the formula.  Recently, I discovered a cheaper and better product.

Lucas Pawpaw Ointment.  At £4 a tube from TheProMakeupShop.com, it’s more than half the price of the Virgin Vie equivalent, and considerably less than Elizabeth Arden’s 8 hour cream, also reputed to be a great healer-of-all-ailments.

When I first got my hands on this, it was immediately before I went on holiday, and like all makeup artists and beauty writers, your holiday bag is stuffed full of products to test and try, so this came too!

Well, what a workout it got!  My 2 older sons of 4 and 6 picked up nettle stings, scrapes, bruises and bumps, and each time, out came the pawpaw ointment.

The odd blemish, ahem, on me was zapped with it too, and when I had a dry patch after a touch too much sun, it soothed away the pain on my shoulders.

It has cleared up dry skin that often gets left behind after spots have appeared, its a lovely reach treatment for those dehydrated dry days, and the texture of it, not dissimilar to vaseline, makes it a lovely soothing ointment for rubbing on small children to make them feel comforted by it.  And the bonus?  It really doesn’t sting, and any mother will know that children fell pain far more than we do (or so they would have us believe!).

For the makeup artist, what I have found is that it’s useful to blob onto a dry spot, leave it about half an hour, wipe off any excess, and the dry skin will come with it, leaving smooth skin, even if still marked, you have a smooth canvas to work on.  In the past, I’ve always used a thick blob of eye cream, but it doesn’t work as fast, this is much better.

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.