Makeup brushes: The essentials

If you're looking to start out with some makeup brushes it can be a bit confusing, there are so many different shapes and sizes and brands and colours and hairs and fibres!

Here I'm going to share with you what I would consider to be the 'essentials' this is for the face and the eyes because it is true that your fingers, sponges, and sponge tip applicators that you get with some makeup is sufficient. Investing in some brushes is the next slightly more serious step in your makeup collection.

First of all, I will always recommend synthetic (man made) hairs over natural (animals such as ponys and goats) haired brushes, they are more durable, often cheaper and to be honest, kinder. My initial brush set came from BareMinerals which uses only natural hairs, the brushes are good but knowing what I know now, if given the choice I would purchase all synthetic

The brush breakdown:

1. A foundation brush. If you're a liquid user then a flat foundation brush will work a treat. Mine is from Boots No7 range and I used a money off voucher aswell. If you're more of a powder foundation girl then a kabuki brush is the way foward

2. An 'other' powder brush. It will often be called a face brush, or a bronzer brush. Its just flat and fluffy and is a universal tool to apply bronzer, blusher, highlighter and finishing powder.

3. A flat eye brush, this one is fluffy and broad enough to cover the whole eyelid in a shadow easily, but used on it's tip it can get into the crease aswell. It's a universal brush and you will always have a need for it. This is called the 'Contour shadow' brush by Bare Escentuals

4. Finally, the best til last and my favourite brush of all time, my 'desert island' brush is the MAC 224, although there are plenty of cheaper alternatives. This is the mother of blending brushes. It turns a smokey eye that looks like a black eye into a Beyonce makeup look. Where it's bristles swirl, the world is a better place. I use this brush every single day, and I've not found another I like more. It blends a lot, it blends a little, it tones down colours, brightens eyes, softens edges. Gah! I don't know what it's made of, but it must be filled with fairy dust.

The brushes really do the work for me, I don't consider myself to be especially talented over anyone without brushes at makeup, the brushes to me are kind of like cheating because they are so good, it is very hard to go wrong. They erase all mistakes and blend all flaws and I just swirl the handle in a logical way hoping for the best.

Why ebay can be ris-kay (but why it's mostly worth it)

So I buy a lot from ebay and this is why
1.It's quick
2.It's easy
3.Everything is in one place
4.Paypal always favours the buyer and makes sure the buyer is satisfied

So what's the pitfalls?
1.You don't get to see the stuff in real and there are sellers who will photoshop items to make them look better, brighter etc AND there's sellers who just google image their item and get a stock photo, this is not such a problem if you're buying new items, but it won't be accurate if you're buying something second hand
2. Stuff can take a long time to arrive (especially from Grand ol' China)
3. Essentially you are bidding on someone elses junk, that has been stored probably behind a radiator, or in that cupboard that always smells musty
4.You're buying from people who probably have other jobs and so don't operate as effectively a website run by people whose full time job is to answer to your emails and post your products

My ebay catastrophes:
I paid £40 for a dress only to recieve it with chocolate stains all down the skirt!
I've bought more books than I can count described as 'good' condition that when they arrive tell a very different story (think torn covers and musky pages)
A fake Hello Kitty purse- fake hello kitty?! Are you kidding me?
Linen trousers that arrived after my holiday

Those are all I can think of on the top of my head, and for about 200 transactions to date, I'd say that's not so bad at all.

So here they are, my words of advice:
-If you're selling, always post recorded within your country because otherwise the buyer can recieve the item but tell Paypal it's got lost in the post and Paypal will swipe that money from your account faster than you can say 'Liar liar pants on fire'

-Do not expect products brand new with tags (especially designer) items to be genuine, the best you can do is hope that they are. This can be everything from Gucci, Louis Vuitton to fake MAC Makeup, wedding dresses, perfume and even fake Hello Kitty!
The way to get around this is to be wary of a person selling multiple of the same brand new D&G handbag for instance.
Who has ten identical 'brand new with tags' designer bags stored in a cupboard?
Fraudsters importing them from China, that's who.
Usually if a Ralph Lauren Jumper or Ted Baker dress is listed on ebay as brand new and the photo looks like it was taken by Sally down the road rather than a super-professional photo then it's probably genuine.
But even better still is if the designer item is used, as this is likely to be a individual seller rather than a business ebayer and probably genuinely has been put on ebay due to a closet clear out and selling of some pre-loved goodies

-China is the top importer of fake goodies into ebay, this is no big deal if buying general bits and pieces but labelled and designer goods are almost certainly fake. This can include GHD flat irons, ugg boots and prom dresses. If you want to risk it check their return policy, feedback and if you have a good eye for fakes then you can always send it back and get a refund (remember how paypal always want to rescue the buyer and will take your word for it in most instances)

-Pay by Paypal, it is your best friend and will make sure that you (the buyer) is always covered, Paypal will always give the buyer the benefit of the doubt! But if you're selling be aware that paypal and ebay take a portion of the profits

I leave you, with a bit of ebay info from the inside! (click it to make it bigger!)