Another 187 Dupe and Studio Tools Brushes Review

So I was walking around Target, not intending to buy anything makeup-related, and I stumbled across the Studio Tools section near the Sally Hansen nail products display. Damn, I was in for some impulse buys. I had already owned the Studio Tools Smudge Brush, which I love, and decided to pick up three other brushes. And after I remembered seeing a video that Kaycee did about the Studio Tools Dual-Finish Brush, I decided I had to get it.

The Studio Tools Dual-Finish Brush is $6.99 and it's a stippling brush with natural and synthetic fibers. The entire brush measures a little over 6.5" long and has a transparent, dark-gray plastic handle, as do all the brushes. The handles look solid black but if you hold them up to the light, you'll see right through them. They are also made in China and so far, only a couple hairs from the crease brush has shed.

Now, I don't own the full size MAC 187 because I don't use liquid foundation (watch Kaycee's video that compares the full-size MAC 187 to the Studio Tools), so I'm comparing the Studio Tools brush with other stippling brushes that I own. I love these types of brushes for blush, bronzer, and contouring.

For my previous posts about these other 187 dupes, click below:
Flirt! Feather Dust-her Brush from Kohl's
Everyday Minerals Skunkless Foptic Brush

~The Studio Tools 187 dupe has the perfect ratio of natural to synthetic bristles. It's not as dense as the EDM and not as sparse as the Flirt! brush - it's perfect. I also love the height of the bristles and the handle is chubby enough to fit comfortably in my hand without being too big. Another good thing about it is that the end of the handle is flat, so you can stand it upright on your desk or vanity. That's a good thing for me since I have no more room in my brush holders. The bristles are soft, they haven't shed (so far), and it did not smell funky right out of the package. It gets a 5 out of 5.
~If I had to rank my 4 stippling brushes in order of preference, it would be exactly like the pictures below: Studio Tools, MAC, Flirt!, and Everyday Minerals.

(Click to enlarge)

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~The Medium Shadow Brush ($2.49) is one of those brushes you grab for when you're lazy and don't want to get out another brush. You can do a whole look with this one brush: lid, crease, outer-V, and highlight. It's super soft, not pokey at all, and made with natural hairs.
5 out of 5
~The Smudge Brush ($2.49) has shorter, stiffer bristles and it's good for packing on color on small lids or for applying three or four different colors on your lid if you're doing a rainbow look. Of course, it's also good for smudging out your eyeliner and is made with natural hairs. 5 out of 5

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~The last brush is the Eye Contour (crease) Brush ($1.99) and I have to say that this is now my favorite crease brush. It's not as full as the Sonia Kashuk but it's almost similar to the elf Blending brush - the Studio Tools is more tapered at the end, so it fits into your crease nicely. It's super soft and not pokey, just like all the other brushes. This is also made with natural bristles and can you believe it's only $1.99! 5 out of 5

~(BTW, the UpStage Crease brush is another fave of mine and I got this at Long's Drug, which is now converting to CVS, so I don't know if you can still find it there. I love how fluffy, tapered, and pointy this brush is and it fits perfectly into your crease - a very underrated, unknown brush.)
~The MAC pencil brush (219, not 119) is just there to give you an idea of the brush head sizes.

(Click to enlarge)

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FINAL THOUGHTS

1. These 4 Studio Tools brushes are affordable, easy to find (at Target), and very soft. All of them get 5 stars!
2. All brushes have handles with flat ends, so you can stand them upright. This is a great option for the Dual-Finish brush.
   

Hope this helps! It's 3 in the morning and I'm going to bed! =)

Skunkless Foptic Brush & EDM Haul

I got some goodies in the mail today and decided to post this up just for you Everyday Minerals fans. Their new skunkless Foptic brush ($10) came out last week, skunkless because it's a 100% vegan brush with no animal hair, and foptic because it's a play on words by combining fibre and optic. Basically, it's a STIPPLING brush. All their brushes are made with renewable bamboo handles and synthetic bristles and might I add they are UBER soft, plush & lush! If you hate their makeup, try out a 6-piece brush kit for $34. That would average out each brush to about $5.67.

Below are some size comparisons between the 2 other stippling brushes I have.
For further review of the MAC & Flirt! brushes, click here.

The EDM Foptic brush is about 6 3/4" long, while the bristles are about 2" long. I haven't used it yet but the bristles seem like they're too long. My only gripe is that I feel the ferrule is also too long while the bamboo handle isn't long enough. If you see in the first picture, it feels natural to grasp the brush right in the middle, which is where the end of the ferrule is. Oh well, but the brush has a good weight to it and of course, it's soft. Oh yeah, and it's really dense and wide so it's going to pick up more color than an average stippling brush. I can just slide the plastic sleeve that it came with down the bristles so that it's not too flared out. I'll try it out tomorrow and update this post on the bottom.

Did you notice the new square logo instead of that ugly target or CBS eye symbol that they used to have?

Next is the EDM pressed Spring Eye Palette ($8), which is in stock for a limited time only. I hate the cardboard packaging and this particular top is impossible to squeeze back on because it's so tight. Their plastic compacts are supposed to come out late March.

Butterfly Kisses is a strong orange-yellow with a pearl finish, Leaps & Bounds is a light sage green with a shimmer finish and Postacards is a matte, dark forest green that can be used as a liner.

On the left, the new palette is pressed with Jojoba Seed Oil while on the right, the old one is pressed with just Jojoba. I don't know if all future pressed powders are going to be pressed with the Jojoba oil but I would like to see their face products kept oil-free. I did notice that the new palette is still soft and powdery but not as much as the old one which is very loosely pressed and fragile.


This is what happened to my All Smiles when I dropped it 2 and a half feet above a carpeted floor. *groan* I love this color though! You can depot these, click here.

New logo and colors! I like this better than the old dark brown and purple lid with the ugly target symbol. If this was a blush, "base" would say "cheek" instead and the text color would be different. Also, their jars are made with recyclable plastic...a very green company, huh? =)

Beige Neutral Intensive (Buff category) is similar to Golden Medium Intensive (Olive category) except that this is more beige and less yellow than GMI. Currently, I'm mixing the two since GMI seems to be a tad too dark yellow for me right now. Hmm, 6 grams? Didn't it used to always be 8 grams? Maybe it's a label mistake.

Here's a closeup of their awesome closeable and adjustable sifters. I don't want to hear anymore complaining now! LoL There's a semi-circle shaped piece of plastic that can rotate 360 degrees, so that you can expose only a few holes or all of them. After you're done, just slide it over all the holes and no more mess.

I also picked up another sample kit, cuz it's free (not pictured), and here's my two free gifts that I've never tried before.
They came in puff jars. I've got so many free puff jars I don't know what to do with 'em. They're ok to use with finishing powders but it takes a little effort getting the product out. Sometimes, you have to pat it on your hand a few times before the powder dispenses. The puff part is removeable, like a shower cap, so you can wash it. I like the mirrors on top of them though.

So that was my EDM haul. Just thought I'd share what "March" looks like in the Hello Kitty calendar. I liked the colors and thought it was so girly and cute... all frilly and Marie Antoinette-esque. Doesn't it look like HK is giving us the birdie? LoL =P

*~*UPDATE*~*
EDM Foptic Brush Review

SHEDDING: While washing, 4 or 5 of the bristles shed, which was disappointing since EDM brushes don't shed.

BLEEDING: Sadly, the dye on the dark bristles bleed just a little bit on the paper towel I laid it on to dry.

USE: Since I mainly use stippling brushes for blush, I felt that it still did a good job, even though these bristles are more dense and the diameter is more wide than my others. I keep the plastic sleeves on my brushes to protect the bristles from my fingers since I have to reach down into my brush box to grasp my face brushes. (see pic below)...

If you find that the brush is not stiff enough because the bristles are too long, or that the brush head flares out too widely, just slide your plastic sleeve that came with your brush over the bristles about half way to adjust it. When you're done, slide the sleeve all the way up and it will help to keep the shape of your brush heads and protect the handles. If you threw them out, I'm pretty sure you can just make your own sleeves with paper and tape.

BRISTLES: Upon further inspection, it seems like there's not enough short dark-haired bristles while there's too many longer white-haired bristles. There's not much a definition between the two but it's still really soft.

FINAL THOUGHTS: After the long wait, the Foptic brush didn't really live up to my expectations. EDM needs to do some redesigning because it's not really a stippling brush. The bristles and ferrule are too long while the bamboo handle is too short.
Other than that, it's still useable, but it's a Foptic Flop.

EDIT: For a review on a better stippling brush,
click here for the Studio Tools Dual-Finish Brush review.

An Inexpensive Dupe for the MAC187 SE

The MAC 187 brush is a very pricey duo fibre, stippling, skunk, fiber optic (whatever you want to call it) brush that runs for $42. It's usually used for liquid foundation or for blush to give you that flawless air brushed look. I personally don't use liquid foundation and I wanted a duo fibre brush to apply my loose mineral blushes.

There was no way I was going to spend $42 on one brush even though it's a very good quality item. But when Nordstrom came out with their Colorforms limited edition collection earlier this year, I had to snag up one of the brush sets for $49.50 that included the 187 SE (special edition). Mind you, the special edition brushes are not of the same quality as the regular brushes but still useable. The current brush set that contains the 187 SE is from the Adoring Carmine collection, which is also $49.50.

So I found a pretty good dupe since I needed another stippling brush. I picked up the Flirt! Feather Dust-her brush at Kohl's for only $7. Sadly, it's not listed on either website so if you're near a Kohl's store you should walk in quickly to check it out.


DIMENSIONS

Flirt! Feather Dust-her (cute name):
Length- 6.75" long
Bristles- 1.75" long
Brush Head Width- 1.5" long
Bristle Base Width (right above the ferrule)- a little over 0.5"

MAC 187 SE:
Length- 5" long
Bristles- 1.5" long
Brush Head Width- 1.25" long
Bristle Base Width (right above the ferrule)- 0.75" long

[sorry about the decimals, I can't put fractions]

COMPARISON

The Flirt! brush handle is longer and has a nice matte look to it. The significant difference is that the Flirt! brush has about twice as less bristles as the MAC 187 SE, which can be a plus because if you're using a very pigmented blush, you only want to pick up a little bit of color anyway. The Flirt! brush head is more narrow at the base than the MAC, hence, less bristles, and it flares out more at the top than the MAC 187 SE. The black bristles, which I believe are animal hair (don't quote me on that), get more frizzy and frayed the more I wash it but it doesn't bother me since the focus of the brush are the white synthetic bristles.

The white bristles are very soft on both brushes. In fact, they feel exactly the same and the length of the white bristles poking out from the black bristles on both brushes are the same length. The MAC 187 SE is a little bit stiffer but for applying blush, the Flirt! brush does the job perfectly.



L: Flirt! Feather Dust-her, R: MAC 187 SE

Overall, the Flirt! Feather Dust-her brush for $7 is a steal and is a very good dupe for the MAC 187 SE. As for shedding, mine has not shed one hair. The only thing bad about the brush is that it's hard to find. I checked both the Koh'ls and Flirt! website and it's not there. And the first time I went looking for this brush at a Kohl's store, it was sold out and didn't come back in for about two weeks. But another bad thing about the brush is that it might be too flimsy to use with liquid foundation. I've heard Sonia Kashuk has a similar brush available at Target's but costs more that the Flirt! and I can't seem to find it at any of my local Tar-Jeh's.

So if you're ever near a Koh'ls and want to try your first duo fibre brush at an affordable price, pick up the Flirt! Feather Dust-her. I just love the name of it. The play on words is cute.

Hope this helps! =)

EDIT:
A con about this brush is that the black dye on the natural hairs will fade to a purplish color. I now use this mostly with my finishing powder and it works great.

For a review about another 187 dupe, the
Studio Tools Dual-Finish Brush, click here.