SPECTRUM BRUSH SET

Guess who got herself a Spectrum Collection 10 piece brush set for free? You guessed it, me! I saved up 400 Birchbox points, worth £40.00, meaning I could get this £39.99 Spectrum brush set for free! 

I only discovered Spectrum through Birchbox when I received their ‘Unicorn Tears Wonder Sponge’ in  one of my monthly boxes. I had been on the lookout for a new brush set and thought I would look into them a little more. As a brand, Spectrum is wonderful, all of their products are vegan registered and cruelty free, and as I am currently in the process of going cruelty free, that is important to me. Their site does declare that all of their brushes are made with 100% unicorn hair, but reassure you that no unicorns were harmed in the making. Yay for mythical creatures!

These brushes are absolutely gorgeous. I mean look at them, they’re pink, blue and purple, what a beautiful colour combination! I don’t think they could be any prettier! Besides how they look though, let’s talk about how they feel. As the Spectrum website declares, unicorn hair, and when you feel them, you wouldn’t find it too hard to believe. These things are so soft. It’s insane, when they arrived I was just rubbing them on my face because they’re so luxuriously soft, and for the price, that’s really impressive. I actually put off using these for a little while because I didn’t want to ruin them and was worried that they might not feel as good after washing them, but more on that later.

I’m not exactly sure of how to explain what these brushes feel like to use, but I’ll give it a go. Obviously, how soft they are figures into it, it’s like brushing unicorn hairs and magic clouds on your face, but alongside that, the handle is really sturdy and comfortable to hold. I don’t have a clue if you’ll know what I mean by that, but I feel like the handle on these is perfect for each brush to be used properly. I don’t want to slate other brushes, but just for example, compared to these, the handles on the Real Techniques brushes seem unnecessarily wide, and quite a bit shorter. I never had a problem with this before, and realistically I still don’t, but I find these so much more comfortable to use because of that.

Okay, so let’s get into the brushes included in this 10 Piece Essentials Set:

Here we have the face brushes, A01, B01 and A05. Let’s start at the top with the Ao1, which is your powder brush. This is the biggest brush in the set, however, what I really enjoy about this is that it isn’t huge like some powder brushes. I much prefer this to any other powder brush I have, as it’s more densely packed and feel’s much more luxurious on the face. As you would expect from a powder brush it distributes product nicely and powders do not cling to the brush and get stuck in there. All round, this is a really lovely brush.

Next up is the B01, I would probably have to say this is my favourite of all the brushes included in this set. I love a good buffer brush, which this is. Flat topped buffer brushes have a place in my heart, I do not know why I love them so much, but I really do. I previously loved my Real Techniques buffer brush, but, I’m sorry, this one puts that to shame. This is, again, so soft, so densely packed, and unlike with the RT one, my liquid foundation doesn’t get soaked up into the centre of this never to be seen again, until I eventually manage to claw it out when washing it. Washing this buffer brush was so easy, as so little product was stuck in there. I am in love with this brush.

Finally, we have the A05, you angled face sculpting brush. Again, perfect size, luxuriously soft, lovely brush to use. My only thing with this one is that I personally would have preferred a tulip brush as I find them easier to use. It’s a great brush, and I am getting along with it great, it applied products lovely giving a lovely even finish, but I just feel like I personally would like a tulip brush more. Spectrum does sell a tulip brush, so I might just have to buy one separately! Also, whilst on the ‘face’ section, I feel that a fan brush is needed, which Spectrum also offer (in two sizes!) so I may have to pick myself up one of those!

Moving on, we have the eye brushes, B03, A06, B06 and B04. All of these are so wonderful to use for eyeshadows. B03 is brilliant for smoking out eyeshadow and blending shades together, as is the B06, however, this also works so wonderfully for blending and building in the crease. The A06 is great for packing colour onto the lid, and with its larger size, it makes an easy job of covering the lid. The B04 is also great, I find that with this being angled it is perfect for the outer edge of a smokey eye. As with the others, again all of these are so luxuriously soft and perfectly sized. I don’t feel like anything is missing with these brushes. They are again perfectly packed and washing them was easy as they don’t get a product build up them, so you know you’re not wasting product as well as having a brilliant brush to use!

Finally, we have these detailer brushes, A15, A09 and A17. Immediately, as with all of these brushes, they’re soft, easy to use, densely packed and made of magic. What I particularly love about these detailer brushes, is that they are so versatile, each of these can do multiple jobs, and that’s great! Let’s start with the A15, this little detailer is perfect for concealer application, if you wanted to use a brush for that, applying eyeshadow on the lower lashline, applying highlight on the inner corner or browbone, as a lip brush and so on.

The A09 can basically be used for all of the same jobs, but can also take on the job is eyeliner. This has a slightly angled handle, as you can see from the image, which means using it for eyeliner is quite nice if you want a thicker more dramatic line, otherwise it’s too think for a subtle line. What I will say about this brush though, it is horrible to wash. Out of all of the brushes in this set, it’s awful to wash, it soaks up so much product into the hard to reach centre. I had to wash this brush roughly 5 times, soaking it in baby shampoo in order to get the product out. Awful. Otherwise, it’s a lovely brush to use.

The A17 is just your typical angled brush, to be used for brows or eyeliner or anything like that. I wouldn’t declare that this brush is anything special, it’s again really soft and east to use, but you know, it’s just a basic angled brush.

Whilst doing this review of the Spectrum brushes, I might as well give you a review of the sponge which I received in a Birchbox at some point, as this is what introduced me to the brand. This is basically their version of the BeautyBlender, and now I will admit that I’m not into using sponges, it just doesn’t work for me. I tried it before with the Maybelline Dream Sponge and hated it. This, however, I am enjoying. When you dampen it, it becomes really soft and almost doubles in size. It applied product well, but it’s not fooling anyone, it’s a sponge, sponges absorb, and this sucks in a whole lot of product. I do quite like this, not as much as the brushes though. I’m not into sponges though, so I don’t really know, I thought I would just add this little bit as it’s the reason I discovered Spectrum.

This post has become a whole lot longer than I initially intended it to, so if you’ve read it all I congratulate you! Well done! I hope you’ve enjoyed my enormous ramble about these wonderful Unicorn brushes. Have you tried out any Spectrum brushes before? Any recommendations? As always, let me know and chat to me in the comments!

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