I thought that my foundation brush hauling days were over after I bought the Shu Uemura Goat Hair brush but alas…when I saw this foundation brush from Shiseido, the 131, I had to buy it. I am a sucker for interesting brush designs and with it being Shiseido…I knew it would be good, PLUS it is pretty much the same as the Shisedo The Make Up foundation brush on the Western market.
Shiseido as we know on the Western market tends up be just the one range, but Shiseido in Japan owns many many smaller sub brands and has super affordable high street cosmetics and the extremely expensive lines too. This range of brushes is fairly affordable upper end high street stuff:
The Shiseido Foundation brush has a short handle and is easy to travel around with. It is made to be used with different types of bases, liquid, powder or cream (although strangely enough the description says avoid using it with waterproof or water resistant base – maybe it makes it harder to clean?).
The head of the brush is super interesting as it is a very dense head, with super duper soft bristles. I do love these flat top brushes but sometimes they can be a bit streaky and hard to use:
I might as well tell you now that I LOVED this brush. The dense head works so well and buffs the product into the skin quickly and effortlessly; no streaks, no stray hairs over the face, and super super soft.
It has a angled slant to it to get into those pesky corners.
I found the slant meant that it fit nicely for the corners of the nose and also over the eyelids.
It is so quick and easy to use (unless you have a huge face). I tried it with cream and liquid base and both times it was just amazing.
The problem with this brush – the only issue – is that like with a lot of flat top dense brushes, product gets sucked up by it and really burrows deep. I have been using it with By Terry foundation so…it’s a little gut wrenching! In which case I found it helps if I spritz it lightly with some facial mist first, as it means the brush won’t suck up so much product.
Alternatively, I may use it to spread the last of my moisturiser THEN do the foundation because once again, it means less product is sucked up.
Now – this brush from what I’ve seen (I went to the Shiseido counter to compare) is the same thing as the The Makeup Foundation Brush bar the handle. On this one it is transparent, and the Shiseido is on the bottom half of the handle. On the other brush, it is on the top part. 
To clean I use alcohol, or for a deep clean, cleansing oil and some gentle shampoo.
The Shiseido The Make Up Foundation Brush – spot the difference?:
Now the main difference is price. The Make Up Foundation Brush costs £27 and the 131 (on Adambeauty.com) is currently $24.50 which is £15.49 (pretty much the same as Japanese retail price, thanks Adam!).
Ergo, at almost half the price my money is totally on the Shisedio 131 – no reason to pay so much more for essentially the same thing.
This foundation brush is FIERCE, I swear, I can’t imagine another brush (for me at least) replacing it for a long time.
How do you apply foundation?
*I bought this from adambeauty.com, my spiritual home.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
argh, must find this!
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hmmm, another thing to put on my list for my Japanese adventure! I did get a Suqqu Eye Shadow Brush F today, though!
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Yes I use a similar brush from Sigma only it isn’t slanted. I almost bought a slanted one from shopbubbi but eventually decided not to.
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Thanks for sharing, I’ve been curious about this brush!
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I always use shampoo to clean my brushes, although they were a bit neglected until last week, this brush looks really thick in the pictures, I always find that I use loads foundation when using a thick brush, I still prefer a much thiner one.
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I found this! You know, in some drugstores it’s on sale for ~1300 yen
It’s also available in a lighter packaging – I wonder if it’s the newer packaging? As it’s still called the 131 brush. Going to pick it up now, you enabler!
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