I had my beady eye on the Shu Uemura Goat Hair foundation brush for a long, long time. I finally saw it with a decent discount on eBay and went ahead and purchased the No. 18!
This brush is unusual for a foundation brush for so many reasons! It’s a short handle, its a small head, it’s stubby and sort of more of a blusher brush, it has goat hair which is quite rough etc. etc. It’s nothing like what we’d think of as a foundation brush.
This brush is amazing…
Even though it looks weird, totally the opposite of what a foundation brush should be. It reminds me of me of the Sephora IT brush which I like but has started to moult. Also the IT brush has a really long handle which looks nice but is totally impractical to carry round.
The brush has a stubby head and short bristles. To be honest I hate the normal type of foundation brush, with the flat style and synthetic hair. I find it’s streaky and I am not the biggest fan of fibre brushes either.
The hairs are uneven and like I said before, a bit rough – that’s what goats hair is like. I used this with my MAQuillage base which I ADORE.
Don’t be too precious about the smooth surface, eh!?
Within a few buffs, I had a really clean, really soft even finish. It’s SO good and leaving an even coverage on the face, no streaks with a bit of buffing and also encouraged me to use less product instead of spreading it about over and over.
Note – I prefer cream foundation due to the dryness of my skin but I love cream and liquid bases too. I noticed in the Shu Uemura promo pictures they ALSO demonstrated this brush with a cream (nobara) foundation.
Does this mean this brush works best with cream compact foundations? Well I think it was exceptional with my cream foundation, and I have used this with liquids etc and it works just as well. No go with mineral foundation, it just doesn’t seem to make sense but with the runnier/cream textures, yes it’s great.
Product LOVE.
I think this brush is £41 which is EXPENSIVE, I mean you could buy the whole goat for that. I got it for £24 from eBay so I do recommend checking it out but of course you want to make sure you get the real thing and comparing mine side by side I know it is.
It’s here on the Shu Uemura site. I seriously exhausted Shu Uemura a few years ago by buying everything they have (like I did with Nars) and am waiting for them to do a rebrand or really bring out something super exciting but I’m not seeing it yet.
What is your favourite foundation brush?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
OMGoodddness, that is pricey!!!! But looks great!!! I agree the flatter brushes can seem a bit streaky. Great blog!
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Hi Tiffany
This brush is well better than the flat synthetic brushes!!!
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If you can’t shell out for Shu Uemura (I can’t, well, at least not in the UK!), No7 foundation brush is slightly similar to this as it’s very full compared to most foundation brushes. Am using that atm and loving it!
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Hi Mariko
I don’t have the No 7 one I’ll check it ou! I am forever buying new brushes!
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Oh, my! I have been lusting after this brush for the longest time having read so many good reviews about it. But I am still punishing myself for buying the synthetic 14 brush, which is not good at all! Now that you give this the thumbs up I might just cave. Would you suggest Shu’s lovely goat brush or the Beautyblender (for liquid foundations)? Thank you. I love your humor, by the way.
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Hi Strawbit
Well you know I do like the beauty blender and I DO get why people like it it just…wasn’t for me. I think I found it quite tedious using it to blend in and then it’s a bit annoying to clean – not impossible, just annoying whereas with the brush you can just go – swipe swipe swipe – DONE!
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wow~ this brush seems so interesting! i will definitely check it out when i’m at Shu next time. XD
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Hey Pam
yes do! It’s a tiny little thing it doesn’t look that special!
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