My Essential Makeup Brushes

I constantly see pictures of bloggers brush collections that are in hundreds of pretty jars; it's like a field of white and black adorning the tops of their vanity tables. In the beginning, when Lilac Ghosts was just a glimmer in my eye, all these images made me think that I needed an army of brushes to create amazing makeup. Fast forward to today and I have come to realise that this is not the case, I don't have that many brushes but even out of the two jars I do have, these are the only ones I use every day.

For face brushes there is generally one brush for each job that needs doing. To buff in my foundation and get a flawless base I use the Real Techniques Buffing Brush, this is super soft so it is ideal for my sensitive skin and it also buffs in the foundation with precision and gives a really nice and even finish. I then give my foundation a little dust of powder to set it and my Zoeva Powder Brush is superb for this task, it's big and fluffy and can also be used for bronzer. Then we have the Real Techniques Blush Brush, the shape of this brush means that I can either apply blush to the apples of the cheeks and blend out, or just the tops of the cheekbones. This is super duper soft and fits my tiny face perfectly. To finish off the face I use my MAC 168, this has had a lot more use recently as I've discovered I love it for applying highlighter to the tops of the cheekbones. It's small shape and angled bristles mean that it fits perfectly on top of the cheeks, not to mention it is ridiculously soft. 

We then move onto the eyes and for this I usually only use 3 key brushes. To apply the colour all over the lid I love the Real Techniques Domed Shadow Brush. This brush is the perfect size, not too big and not too small. It is thick but fluffy and makes it quick to apply a base colour to the lid. I usually stick with one colour all over but if I do decide to do a bit of contouring, I love my MAC 217 brush. Depending on what I'm doing I'll either apply a contour colour into the crease using a pencil brush and then blend out or put the colour straight onto the 217 and blend. Then finally we have the Real Techniques Eyebrow Brush, the perfect amount of firm but fluffy to allow even distribution of powder through the brows.

All of these brushes are very easy to clean ad apart from the two MAC brushes they are all synthetic hair and retain their shape perfectly. The MAC brushes need a bit more help as they are real hair, I usually put them in flexible brush covers after washing and then they dry back into their original shape. This just shows that as long as you have good quality brushes and look after them accordingly, there is no need to spend your life's wages on mountains of brushes.

How big is your brush collection? Do you find that you use the same brushes over and over?