Must Have Make Up Brushes For Beginners

Now sometimes people see photos like the ones I've shown below and think they need all of those brushes to start a make up collection. I don't think that's true at all - I think when you are just starting out, there are only around 10 brushes that you need to create a full face of make up flawlessly. Once you start getting more into make up, you may want to expand your collection and especially if you are lazy at washing your brushes, it can help to have a load of spare brushes! Also when you are experimenting with make up, you may find you need certain additional brushes, but these are 10 types of brushes that I think all beginners should start with and a few examples of my favourites.

1. Foundation / Buffing Brush 
 - Back in the day, I always used to use a flat foundation brush to apply my foundation, because well, what else would you use? Then as I got more into make up, I realised I prefer a buffing brush, such as the ELF .. This works well for blending your thicker or more full coverage foundations seamlessly. This brush is best used in circular motions and sweeping away from the centre of your face.

2. Powder Brush
 - If you are going to set your face, you will find a powder brush to be essential. I prefer larger powder brushes as you can cover bigger sections of your face. You want to use this brush in gentle patting motions, as rubbing can cause your foundation to move. Two of my favourite powder brushes are the EcoTools and the Real Techniques XL brush.

3. Contour Brush
- These are great for precisely applying a powder contour product under your cheekbone and keeping it in a nice straight line. There are a few different types of contouring brush so it's up to you which style you prefer (or you can have them all!). The flat contour brush creates a much harsher, precise, straight line whereas an angled brush creates a much softer line but it is still precise.

4. Bronzing Brush 
- For bronzing, you want a brush that is relatively fluffy and not dense and something that is smaller than a powder brush (unless you want a larger amount of your face to look bronzed). If you have a dense brush, it will pick up too much product and chances are, it will give you a very intense, patchy bronze!

5. Blush Brush
- I'm not really fussy about blush brushes - something smaller than a bronzer brush and again, not too dense to avoid you looking like a clown! My go to blush brush is the Seventeen Blusher Brush which is £2.99 in Boots - they're super soft, no fall out from the bristles and washes well. Another alternative is the Real Techniques blush brush.

6. Highlighting Brush
- Here you have two options, you can go with a large fan brush or a small tapered brush. I own both and regularly use both depending on what I am going for. A large fan brush can be great for giving a more natural, subtle highlight, whereas a small tapered brush gives you a much more intense highlight and it applies the highlight to a more precise area. Large fan brushes can be annoying with smaller highlighters as it can be difficult to pick up product. This fan brush is from Shop Miss A and the highlighting brush is from Real Techniques.

7. Eyebrow Brush
- If you use an eyebrow pencil, mascara type eyebrow product or don't do your eyebrows at all, you can skip this one. But if you want the carved out eyebrows like we see all over Instagram, you might want to invest in one of these slanted brushes. These are great to use with liquid gel eyeliner or brow pomade (which is what I use it for). You want a small, dense brush to apply either of these products precisely. The one I am currently using was £1 in Wilko and is great!

8. Eye Shadow Fluffy Blending Brush
- If you are looking at doing any sort of eyeshadow look, whether it is a simple look or more complex, you probably want to start out with a fluffy eye brush like this. This is great for applying your initial crease colour or all over the lid colour and blending it out. I always go back in with this brush after I've applied a lid colour and deepened the crease to make sure it is all blended together. You want to use this brush in windscreen wiper and circular motions around the eyelid and crease.

9. Eye Shadow Crease Brush
- Once you have applied the first crease colour (usually a pale brown / orange colour), you can use a slightly denser crease brush to apply a darker colour and deepen the crease. This brush will allow you to more precisely apply darker colours (to stop you from looking like a panda!) and it will help you to blend the colours together. I also use this brush to blend eyeshadow onto my lower lash line.You don't need to specifically get an angled crease brush like in this photo, anything similar to this will work fine.

10. Eye Shadow Flat Shader Brush
- This is the type of brush you want to use for packing on colour onto the lid. They can be used for cream shadows, foiled eyeshadows or matte eyeshadows. With a bit of Fix+ spray, you can create a very metallic, pigmented eye look but this brush is an essential for this. You can get a simple flat shading brush in most of the cheap shops, like Poundland, Semi-Chem, Home Bargains etc!

I hope this helps anyone who is not sure what kind of make up brushes they need and what each brush is for or it gives you a starting point of what brushes you might want to start with.

Sarah (aka. Pale Princess) x