I woke up one morning and found myself surrounded by Limited Edition brushes hullabaloo. Hakuhodo, a Japanese powerhouse for natural hair brushes, was collaborating with Sephora to bring a line of synthetic brushes for the plebeian masses!? Count me in.
After much deliberation, partly because the sample pictures and descriptions online told me nothing about shape, size, and density of each brush, I settled for two that could fit into my current brush collection. Keep in mind that I had ordered the Chikuhodo x Beautylish Sakura collection a few days earlier, so I didn't want anything redundant and definitely wanted a few synthetics for what I had purged last month.
The packaging is absolutely elegant and makes these brushes a great gift for makeup lovers. Those rubber bands cling tight, so make sure not to damage the hairs when you remove the brushes. The brushes have their names carved on the ends in Japanese. So darling!
I'm not huge on white brushes because I'm a lazy person but like to keep my personal belongings spotless. Dilemma.
The first, Kusuriyubi ($30), looks like an excellent albeit giant packing brush for the lids. I seem to have quite a few more multipurpose brushes similar to the MAC 217 but only two or three packing brushes. Sephora advertises this as a concealer, highlighter, and precision contour brush (I'm guessing for the nose?)
It works better with powder, but I could use this to place a light layer of concealer under the eyes. I tried spot concealing a blemish with it but the dense hairs picked up more product than it laid down!
This is my favorite of the two. It's straight forward, multi-purpose, and soft but dense. Both of these brushes have good heft in the handle and aren't too long for detailed work. At 30 quids you could find a cheaper synthetic brush or pay an extra 2 bucks for a comparable (and natural hair) Wayne Goss #17.
I'm a little hesitant to express my thoughts on Ougi ($40), because I'm not quite sure if I want to keep it or not. It's not a bad brush. The hairs are soft enough, but the bristles are dense and at the same time too long to pack on color! If you look at the description it warns you that it's for "the natural look, light-med coverage...". This means that you can use it with a highly pigmented blush and it wouldn't look overdone.
It's also hard to blend with this brush because the hairs don't splay into a wide sphere. You want to use this with something that requires long, deliberate strokes such as highlighting or blush toppers. I don't think that this brush would work for precisely placing a metallic highlight on the cheekbones, but it's excellent for blush toppers (think: Becca SSP in Rose Gold, MAC Stereo Rose, etc...)
I have not tried this brush with a contour powder but I suspect it might be a good pairing. The only problem? I have plenty of contouring brushes and don't do enough contouring to justify it!
Otherwise, I did try it with a liquid foundation with ample fear of my brush being stained and the results were streaky and less than fabulous. As you'll see below, the shape is very unique and it will only fit a very particular category of use for you, whatever that may be.
Overall, these are good brushes if you can't access Hakuhodo brushes online (the high shipping costs and extensive list of brushes have always deterred me from making a purchase). I will have to play around with my Ougi for a little while longer before deciding to return or purge it.
Edit (August 3, 2015): I've returned the flat concealer brush and kept Ougi. It's PERFECT for contouring! The brush doesn't splay out too much and has less density on the tips to ensure blending without muddying or spreading contour product too far out. YOU NEED IT.
xo Be
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