Product Battles: Crown Brushes Pt. 4-C433 Pro Blending Fluff vs. M.A.C. #217

 brushes, coastal scents, Crown Brush, Hautelook  4 Responses »
Aug 102011
 

I mentioned in part 1 of this series that I wished Hautelook.com would’ve had the dupes for the M.A.C. #224 and #217 available.  I wanted to do separate posts so that I didn’t overwhelm you all to talk about them.

The Crown Brush C433 Pro Blending Fluff (whew long name) on the left is the brush the post will focus on.

Here are the two brushes next to each other.  You can see why I was so disappointed that Hautelook.com didn’t have these brushes.  It’s very hard to tell the difference between the two…well besides the logos. Ha ha!  As far as how they function, I honestly don’t notice a difference.  This is the absolute best dupe for a M.A.C. brush that I’ve found to date.  The next time I see them available, I’m buying 3.  I purchased this Crown Brush in March of this year.  At the time, I wasn’t sure how it was compare so I only bought one.  I totally regret that now.

Coastal Scents has a brush that looks similar on the website, but it’s always sold out, so I don’t know how it compares.   The Coastal Pro Blending Fluff Brush retails for $3.95 on their website.
 Have any of you tried the Coastal Scents brush?

Product Battles: Crown Brushes Pt. 3-Deluxe Duo Fiber Crease brush

 Crown Brush, Hautelook, Inexpensive Products  2 Responses »
Aug 102011
 

This is part 3 of my Crown Brushes review from Hautleook.com.  This post is focusing on the Deluxe Duo Fiber Crease brush.  I already had one of these from my last purchase from Hautelook.com.  I decided to go ahead and get another one since it was so inexpensive.  I really think that was an impulse by.  I didn’t need another one.  I had never used the first one.  I just love duo fiber brushes and wanted to get it.  Well, now I have two of them.

This is the picture from Crownbrush.com. It’s regularly $12.38 (random price ha ha) on this website.  It’s currently 60% off which brings it to $4.95.  Hautelook.com had it on sale for $4.  I don’t know how long the 60% off sale if going on but that’s not a bad deal at all.
C429 - Deluxe Duo Crease
Here’s a picture of the brushes I purchased.  The actual brush is on the left.  It’s definitely an eye brush. You can see how much smaller it is than the two face brushes next to it.   It’s really soft and doesn’t pick up a lot of color.  I guess you could compare it to a M.A.C. #224 but thinner and not as sturdy.

So what would you use this brush for?

I went ahead and played with it a bit.  I used it to buff in my under eye concealer and to blend all my colors at the end of my eye look.   I don’t see it being that useful in the crease even though it’s marketed as a crease brush.  It would take you a very long time to build color.  I see this brush as one of those that you want just to complete your collection.  It’s definitely not a must have.

Crownbrush.com has a Duo Fiber Kabuki brush on sale right now for $14.95.  I’m so tempted to get it.  I’ve never seen one of these before.  Hmmm, decisions decisions…

Product Battles: Crown Brushes Pt. 2-Round Angle Blender Brush vs. Elf Angled Contour Brush

 brushes, Crown Brush, Elf, Hautelook, Inexpensive Products  4 Responses »
Aug 092011
 

This segment will focus on the Crown Brush Round Angle Blender Brush and Elf’s Angled Contour Brush.

The Elf brush on the left and the Crown Brush brush on the right
When I ordered this brush, I really didn’t know what to expect.  I couldn’t tell from the pictures on Hautelook.com if this was a big or small brush.  I just took a chance. Ha ha!  I honestly didn’t know if it was for the face or eye, I could only see that it had an angle.  From the description saying “rounded”, I was really expecting something different.  When I opened the package and saw the brush, my first thought was “Oh! This is like my Elf brush.”.  Indeed it is very similar but there are some key differences.  See below
Crown brush on the left and the Elf brush on the right
The Crown brush is smaller than my Elf brush.  The brush is shorter and the bristles are more narrow.  The Crown brush however is softer and a little more dense.  I purchased two of these just in case I really liked it.  I didn’t want to miss out on getting another one.  There wasn’t a price difference.  Both were $3, however you can get the Elf Angled Contour brush even cheaper with the different specials on the www.eyeslipsface.com website. Also if you sign up for the newsletter, you can get discounts.   It seems like Elf sends out a different deal each day.  

Product Battles: Crown Brushes Pt. 1 Duo Fiber Brush vs. M.A.C. #187

 brushes, Crown Brush, Dupes, Expensive brushes, Hautelook, Inexpensive Products, M.A.C., Product Battles  4 Responses »
Aug 092011
 

Yay! My brushes came in.  I ordered more Crown Brushes from Haute Look a couple of weeks ago. I was disappointed in the selection that they had available so I only purchased 5 brushes.  Here they are below

These are the brushes I was hoping to see available
They are similar to the M.A.C. #217 on the left and M.A.C. #224 on the right.   I’ll do another post to go into detail about these. Here are links to the posts *click here for M.A.C. #217 & click here for M.A.C. #224*
187 Duo Fibre Brush

My favorite face brush to use on clients is the M.A.C. #187 Brush.  It’s a terrific all around brush.  It works for liquids, powders, and creams.  This means I can use one brush for pretty much the whole face.  I can start with moisturizer then go to primer to foundation to powder to blush and finish with bronzer all using one single brush.  It saves me a lot of time, because I don’t have to reach for 3 other brushes.  Because of it’s design, it allows me to have total control of how much product I use on my client.  I can provide anywhere from very sheer coverage to full.  The fact that you stipple the product on instead of painting or sweeping it allows for that beautiful flawless finish.  I never get streaks or blotches when using this brush.  Of course I brush it off on a tissue or paper towel in between, but still that’s great.

I have two #187 brushes and two duo fiber stippling brushes from Coastal Scents.   The two from Coastal Scents get the job done but they don’t come anywhere close to the quality of the #187.  For this reason, I was hoping I would get brushes that were better dupes for the #187 than my Coastal Scents brushes.  Here are more pictures of the Crown Brush vs. the M.A.C. brush.

So what’s the conclusion? These are much better than my Coastal Scents brushes but still not as good as my #187.  The handle and ferrule (the metal part holding the hair together) are nice quality, unlike my  Coastal Scents brushes in which the ferrules look cheap.  The bristles are pretty good, however not as soft as the #187.  Even though the name of this brush was Duo Fiber Brush, it doesn’t feel as though it’s really Duo Fiber.  It feels all synthetic and no goat.  Also a huge irritation was when I washed them (which you should always do before using new brushes) they faded a bit.  This means the black is dyed. :-(  This is a MAJOR frustration I have with my Coastal Scents brushes.  Every time I wash them, the black fades on the white.  Mind you, I’ve had these brushes for about 2 1/2 yrs now.  No more dye should still fade at this point. Hmph!!  Another observation was that the black bristles are longer on the Crown Brushes than the M.A.C. brush, but it appears there may be more white bristles than on the M.A.C. brush.   See below.
All in all, the brushes are not bad.  As it relates to the difference in pricing, the M.A.C. #187 retails at $42 while the Crown Brush Duo Fiber brush on Hautelook.com was $7.  They work extremely well for $7. 
These days I see plenty of companies with duo fiber brushes.  Which ones do you prefer?