Real techniques buffing brush review

Reviews Aug 24, 2013 August 24, 2013

Real Techniques Expert Face Brush

Real Techniques Expert Face Brush ($8.99) is designed for applying and blending cream or liquid foundation. The brush head is 25mm in length, 30mm in width, and 20mm in thickness. The brush had a total length of 6 inches/15.5 centimeters. The brush is soft, dense, firm (with some give but not fluffy or springy). The edge is slightly rounded, but the most noticeable characteristic about the brush is just how dense it is. It is even denser than the Buffing Brush. I bought this brush after a few readers asked how it compared to Tom Ford’s Cream Foundation Brush. and I don’t think they’re similar in terms of shape, density, and so forth, but the end results achieved with both brushes are more comparable. I do get better and more effortless results with Tom Ford’s, as it doesn’t streak at all for me, but this brush does so occasionally. The rounded, slightly tapered edge makes it easy to buff and blend out any streaks, though, and the synthetic bristles of this brush means it works better with cream and liquid products and is easier to clean. In a blind softness test, I ran both brushes across my husband’s forearm (and I had him do the same for me) three times for each (and at random), Tom Ford always came out on top as softer, but Real Techniques is still very, very soft. I would not complain; I would not even notice, if I didn’t have Tom Ford to compare it to–the way I used this often reminded me of how I used to use MAC’s 109. and this is softer than that brush.

Real Techniques Core Collection ($17.99 for set of four brushes) includes a Buffing Brush, Contour Brush, Pointed Foundation Brush, and Detailer Brush. plus a case to carry them in. For the price, you’re getting a nice amount of brushes, but as with kits, they’re not all as equally useful and ultimately whether you love and use all four regularly will depend entirely on your personal routine and brush preferences. The Buffing and Contour Brushes are both shapes that I think many would use and appreciate, while the Pointed Foundation and Detailer Brushes will be less applicable for all. I really wish you could purchase these brushes individually as well, because I could easily see getting a second Buffing Brush. or if you loved the Detailer Brush. having two or three might be nice for anyone who needs the precision.

Buffing Brush is a medium-sized, wide circular brush that widens at the end and has an ever-so-slightly domed edge. The brush head is 30mm in length, 35mm in width (at its widest point), and 30mm in thickness. In total, the brush has a length of 6 inches/15.5 centimeters. It’s a really nice, multi-tasking brush that can be used to apply foundation (though it says powder, I’ve used it with both powder, cream, and liquid, and it worked fine across all three), blend out blushes and bronzers, or to apply setting powder. It’s densely-packed with soft bristles that feel nice against the skin.

Contour Brush is a small, domed-shaped brush that’s soft, lightly fluffy, and not too dense. The brush head is 30mm in length, 18mm in width, and 18mm in thickness. The brush has a total length of 6.25 inches/15.7 centimeters. It has a good amount of spring so it blends, but it isn’t floppy, so it still retains its shape. It fits nicely into the hollow of the cheeks, so it definitely works exceptionally well for contouring (especially with cream products), but I also quite liked it for applying highlighters on the cheek bones and down the nose as well as for applying cream blushes for a more feathery application. Of the brushes in the set, this was my favorite.

Pointed Foundation Brush was surprisingly small for a flat foundation brush. The brush head is 27mm in length, 15mm in width, and 5mm in thickness. The total length of the brush is 6 inches/15.5 centimeters. It would work better for applying a liquid or cream product to the face, but then using another brush to actually blend and work it into the skin. I often use a concealer brush to dab my liquid foundation in spots on my face before blending the foundation all-over with something larger and denser, so that seemed to be a better use for this than applying foundation all-over. It was very prone to creating lines when I used it for all-over foundation application, so I still needed to go back with something else to buff out all the visible lines. I also tried using it to dab cream highlighters on the cheeks and it was decent, but it doesn’t blend or diffuse the product well enough, so again, a second brush becomes necessary–and I could have just used the second brush for both initial application and subsequent blending.

Detailer Brush is a teeny, tiny firm, flat brush with a tapered edge. The brush head is 9mm in length, 6mm in width, and 3mm in thickness. The whole brush is just under 5.5 inches/14 centimeters. If you have small eyes or deeper crevices around your nose, it might be more useful than your traditional concealer or lip brush as it is much shorter and thinner. This brush was scratchy/rough; when I would pat it underneath the eye for concealer, I could feel a few bristles “stabbing” the skin.

Every brush seemed well-balanced; they weren’t top-heavy or bottom-heavy, so I had good control and they felt good in my hands and as I used them during application. I’ve been using these brushes for several weeks (with the exception of the Expert Face Brush. which I’ve only been using for almost two weeks). I had few splayed bristles on the Buffing Brush when it arrived and haven’t quite been able to get them to re-shape perfectly, so I might trim those stray ones out. I’ve only had a few bristles shed during the first few uses with the Buffing and Expert Face Brushes (which is normal!). I haven’t had any issues cleaning or re-shaping them, and they haven’t bled dye during washes or smelled funny after drying.

See more photos!

Real Techniques Expert Face Brush

Real Techniques Buffing Brush

81 Comments

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I really appreciate how you included the length of the brushes! Thank you, it’s really really useful for me. 😀 Do you find the handles of these brushes to be really thick? I keep my brushes in my brush roll, so before I buy any I’d like to make sure they would fit in there, particularly the Expert Face Brush with its curved handle.

Anyway, I’ve had some brushes splayed like your Buffing Brush, and what I’d do is just wash it then put a brush guard over it — I usually just use a makeshift one made of toilet paper. Dustin Hunter has a video on it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3lwBfyV_OE Truth be told, sometimes I get lazy and just spray the brushes with spray-on brush cleaner before putting the “brush guards” on, and in most occasion, it managed to help reshape the bristles quite well.

I would say that the Expert Face and the Buffing Brush are thicker than the average brush handle for comparable face brushes–the buffing brush in particular. The Expert Face is curved slightly, so the bottom flares out and is wider at the bottom and it is also flared out and wider at the top, so if you have to go by the widest point – the Expert Face handle is even wider than the Buffing. The Expert Face Brush appears to be 20mm across at its widest point and 17mm for the Buffing Brush.

I didn’t notice, but the handles are actually quite thick, relative to other face brushes.

I have the real techniques brushes as well and they are really soft. MAC brushes are too expensive so I cannot compare. I just relied heavily on online reviews by several bloggers saying that these brushes are worth it for the price. 🙂

I am glad you reviewed the expert face brush since this is the only brush I used for liquid and cream foundation and it never fails to give me a smooth and flawless finish.

The face brushes, on average, are as soft or softer than many of MAC’s brushes, though the bigger difference would be synthetic vs. natural for most of the brushes I would say. Softness, IMO, is not always the be-all-end-all of a good brush. Having now seen a wider spectrum of “soft,” while surely desirable doesn’t exclusively make a brush better. It’s like, satin is soft, and silk is even softer – but are both nice? Yes.

I haven’t tried brushes with natural hair though. I have MAC 217 but that’s an eyeshadow brush. I have yet to try a face brush that has natural hair. 🙂 I’m very tempted to buy a very expensive one. but maybe not for now. hehe.

Thanks, Christine! I LOVE Real Techniques for the most part, and I always recommend them to anyone who wants affordable brushes. The Expert Face, the Buffer and Contour are my faves! I use the contour like you do- even for blush sometimes! I love the blush brush as well, but not for blush. It’s too big, but great for dusting powder all over. And that ‘foundation’ brush- it’s got to go! Terrible. LOL. I am going to get that Tom Ford brush this weekend, btw. FINALLY.

It will be hard to spring for TF when the Expert Face gives similar results! Let me know how you feel they compare.

Christine, I’m curious as to why there are no letter grades for these brushes (or for the one single brush and an overall one for the set). I know that price doesn’t factor into your grading system too much (though you do often say that for the price, XYZ product should be better quality), but for a lot of us, price is a huge factor in what we purchase and also how we view the performance of a given product. I find that for the price, most of the RT brushes are truly amazing. I don’t know the price of the Tom Ford brush but I expect it’s considerably more than the Expert Face Brush. For me, to some extent, that price difference plays a part in how I compare certain brushes. I guess what I’m saying is that it amazes me that such good brushes can be so inexpensive and makes me wonder about the real price of some of the wildly costly brushes.

We only have one rating system, which applies well to color cosmetics, but it is obviously not something that makes sense for brushes – aka pigmentation doesn’t exactly work for brushes! We have considered multiple systems, but it’s a more than a minor project on the technical end (and we have more important projects we are working on!), and the next biggest obstacle is trying to come up with only say 2-3 rating systems that can be applied more generally, and I haven’t found a breakout for everything that works or that I really like and think makes sense. I do not presently provide ratings or letter grades for products like tools, skincare, hair care, treatments, etc.

I think that each person must consider price based on their personal preferences, what they expect at certain price points, and what your budget is. When something is expensive and performs poorly, there’s absolutely no excuse for it to do so – they had all the resources and materials available to them and they still managed to blow it. I don’t excuse poor quality in a more affordable product, because nobody should be putting out bad products, but of course, I can still acknowledge that because something is $3 and not $300, you may be willing to sacrifice certain characteristics–but that is something you have to decide since it will differ from person to person. I can make comments on some things as I see them, but I would not impose my commentary within the rating system. All it really does it artificially inflate grades for less expensive products and artificially deflate grades for more expensive grades.

Hope you understand! 🙂

Thanks for the ratings explanation, Christine. I hadn’t realized til now that you only had one for colour cosmetics – yeesh, you’d have thought I’d have figured that one out after all this time here!

I agree with you about poor quality being a waste whether an item is 3 dollars or 30 (I haven’t come close to spending $300 on a cosmetic item…yet! But I won’t say it won’t ever happen!). I think you even had a question a while back about this and I commented that very thing – that I don’t like to waste money even if something is only a few bucks. But by the same token, I love it when I can get a great product at a really affordable price (some of the WnW eye shadow palettes are a good example as are Stila shadows and the Maybelline and L’Oreal “cream” eye shadows). I guess I’ve been that impressed with the RT brushes that I’m putting a lot more thought into whether to purchase more costly brushes these days (though that didn’t stop me getting the Shiseido foundation brush and some Stila eye shadow brushes…I justified the price of THOSE with “but they’re double-sided, so I’m getting 2 brushes for the price of one!). I guess my point is that for a lot of people, price is a factor when weighing up a purchase like this – is the TF brush $60 more terrific than the RT one? And of course, the answer is different for all of us.

I don’t think that, generally, the price differential between a really good budget-friendly option and a really good high-end option is ever going to be dollar-for-dollar better – like I would never argue that Guerlain’s Rouge G (my favorite) is actually say $38 better than Maybelline Vivids (which I do love) or $24 better than Buxom’s Lipsticks, but if we bought rationally all the time…. LOL.

When it comes to brushes, I think the right shape with good quality is ultimately the most important thing. From there, synthetic/natural and any preferences for a particular type for certain applications or just in general, but one thing I’ve learned from testing about 50 brushes in the past 6 months is it’s about what brushes you’ll actually use regularly.

i love these brushes! my buffing brush was like that but after i put a brush guard when i washed it it was fine again! my favorites are the contour brush, i like the expert face brush too but the stippling one is my favorite for foundation and putting cream blushes. i also love the blush brush for blush!

Great to hear, Barbie! Glad yours went back to normal 😀

I have a lot of these brushes too.The quality is fantastic and they are cheap!

I really love the expert face brush. The first one I bought was the Stippling Brush and I loved it but it shed like crazy and after a couple of washes the clue got loose and the brush was ruined and I had to throw it out 🙁
I find them so hard to clean, ’cause I feel like there are just brush hairs and then the glue, so I’m constantly careful with cleaning them because of my experience with the stippling brush and I don’t want to throw my money away. So do you have any tips or tricks with cleaning them?
I’m so careful with cleaning them that I feel like they aren’t really clean after I’ve tried.

I’ve been using EnKore Makeup’s brush soap, and it hasn’t seemed to be an issue (cleaning)!

Don’t SUBMERGE YOUR BRUSHES!
All brushes are made up of hairs (real or synthetic) that are bound together and glued into a handle. Submerging your brushes loosens the glue of ANY brush and will eventually destroy it, though some will last longer than others. Very dense brushes will hold together longer than loose brushes like the stippling brush, and obviously very high-end brushes will be better put together than something you buy at Superdrug. Real techniques brushes are very well made for drugstore brushes, however, and should last a good while if you care for them properly.

How to clean your brushes:
————————————-
Put a little brush cleaner (or baby shampoo) in the palm of your hand and swirl it around, then rinse under running water. Be careful not to let too much water get up into the handle while rinsing, and lay them flat to dry–standing them up to dry will let the water drip down into the handle.

If you wash your brushes often, which is a good idea all around, you’ll avoid having so much product build-up that you feel the need to scrub or soak the brushes.

Soaking brushes is probably the worst thing you can do for any brush, it doesn’t MATTER what Pinterest says!

I would love to try the buffing brush and the foundation brush. I have been talking about trying an RT brush for months now but I still haven’t actually done it.

I have the entire collection of these brushes…all three of the sets, duplicates of a couple of them, etc. I prefer them, hands-down, to MAC brushes, based on softness and price point (and I *own* $200-300 in MAC brushes, easily – more than one of some styles). I have some brushes, for some things, that I prefer more…and within the sets, there are some that I don’t use as much. But for the price? These brushes are pretty hard to beat – and if you watch Ulta, you can OFTEN find them at “buy one, get one at 50% off,” which is how I got the entire collection. RT also often runs their own promotions (e.g. spend a certain amount, get a free brush – that’s how I got a couple of my dupes).

The wide handles are the only downside for me. As a MUA i do love my brush roll but these don’treally fit. 🙁
With the splayed bristles, Ifound out when they arive like this (happened with one of my eyeline brushes) they don’t reshape, even with brushguards. But I also heard their custumer support is awesome when it comes to replacing faulty brushes.

Try the detailer brush with Lip tars… perfect and so easy to clean! Or when using Inglot gel eyeliner for a softer line or as a base colour.

I bought the Core Collection and the eye brushes when they first came out. They were very soft and I’ve gotten more used from these than most of my brushes. I use the buffing brush for foundation, the crease brush or foundation brush for concealer and the contour brush for cream contour colors. The foundation and liner brushes I’ve barely used. For the price point their great.

I own their angled foundation brush, expert face brush, stippling brush, and their little setting brush that’s perfect for setting the under eye area. I no longer use their angled foundation brush because I prefer buffing brushes now like the expert face brush for my foundations, but sometimes I’ll use it to apply primers if I don’t want to use my fingers. The stippling brush is perfect for cream products to apply lightly and slowly build up, I use it for UD’s cream blushes that were on clearance and for Benefit’s Watt’s up highlighter. I love that these brushes are decent to great quality but don’t cost an arm and a leg. What I love is that they’ve never shed bristles, ever, for me, and brushes I paid more for continually shed every single use (my Clinique blush brush). They also retain their shape and are easy to clean. And I’m a huge Pixiwoo fan 🙂

If it’s any consolation to anyone who doesn’t like one or two of the brushes, I think you can get some of them individually from drugstore.com or amazon. I haven’t gotten any myself, but looking at this review is definitely making me want to get a set! The price is hard to beat. 🙂

I bought the Expert Face brush after reading reviews. I love it. I have a Beauty Blender but find I use the Expert Face more now. As for brush rolls, I do put mine in, but have it loose not in one of the sections. The rolls still closes over no problems, but I do use a Brush Guard over the brush.

Tom Ford, I adore his make up, but sorry the white bristles on the brushes would freak me out. Yes, I am weird. But how to keep the clean. The Expert Face just wash and go, I use the Beauty Blender Cleanser for it.

I did buy the Real Techniques blush brush, but just don’t like it. The head is just too big for me, I prefer smaller like the old Smashbox No16 one. I am using Liz Earle’s angled blush brush and love it.