Review: The Body Shop Nature's Minerals Foundation Brush

So sorry for the long absence, guys. This was brought to you partly by the shutdown Blogger had a few days ago and partly because I had an incredibly busy week. Will tell you more about the latter in another entry as I have a few things to finish concerning that. ;) For now, I have another a review post for you all.

The weather these days is such a makeup mojo killer. While I still need to do a full face for work, most of the time I just do away with everything and go for powders with less coverage, but at least they don't feel like they're melting on my skin. The sponge that comes with my Skin Food Carrot Pact applies the powder a little too heavily for my liking, so these days I prefer using brushes. Thankfully I already found my brush best friend (BBF? :p) a couple of years ago:

Photo credit: The Body Shop Philippines

Description: A high-density foundation brush, designed to ensure just the right amount of The Body Shop® Nature's Minerals™ Foundation SPF 25 is captured between the bristles, providing a smooth, even application.

Price: Php1095, available in The Body Shop stores.

Kabuki brushes entered the picture along with mineral makeup, which generally came in the form of a loose powder. Any kabuki brush on the market is characterized by a thick set of bristles designed to pick up a good amount of powder product. They are normally curved and possess a short stem, though nowadays it is not unusual to find flat-top and long-handled kabuki brushes.

The Body Shop came out with their line of kabuki brushes (a foundation, blush, and bronzer version) when they released their Nature's Minerals line, and for me it was love at first touch. Seriously. I was hesitant at shelling out almost a thousand for for the foundation kabuki (it was Php 995 before), but it turned out to be one of the best makeup decisions I ever made. How much do I love thee, TBS kabuki brush? Let me count the ways:

It is ridiculously soft. The bristles are made of taklon and are not scratchy at all. It's cruelty-free and is such a joy to hold. Sometimes I take it out just to touch it! It's that addicting.

Each brush comes with its own brush bag. The bag is made of plastic and is pretty useful for travelling or storage, but is prone to tearing over time. However, it does its job and I'm happy for that. Kabuki bags do exist for these, but I've had no luck in locating one locally. I'd get one in a snap. Or two.

Cozy fit

All tucked in now!

Last and most importantly, it's dense. It picks up more product compared to other kabuki brushes that have less dense bristles, yet it still distributes product evenly and lightly with the usual buffing motion. This is the brush you want to turn to for heavier coverage using powder products, minus the cakey look you may get from sponges. I usually apply foundation with this, but I've tried it with blushes before and it works just as well, only you have to be more careful about buffing it in considering the size of the brush.

The only downside to having and using any kabuki brush is the cleaning. Again due to the density, this brush takes much longer to dry than most makeup brushes (at least a day). I also have to mix in a bit more dishwashing detergent to my usual brush-cleaning solution so that the bristles in the middle would be thoroughly cleaned. It rarely sheds, though, and doesn't bleed.

I love this brush so much. Unfortunately, I lost my first one. :( It took me a week of sweeping my room and asking friends to check their houses and cars before I accepted that it was gone forever. Good thing The Body Shop Philippines is having their 15-year anniversary sale right now, because I was able to get another one at 30% off, plus the blusher version for kicks. It came out to Php 766.50 per brush, cheaper than what I paid for two years ago. Do I recommend that you get this? If you love your powder products, then yes!

My old brush, used it so much that I rubbed off the label. We had a wonderful two years together. 

May it rest in peace, wherever it is. :( Perhaps we will be together again someday (a.k.a. I find it).

In the meantime, hello new brushes!

P.S. Thought I'd share this. The sun came out to play so I got weird shadow backgrounds on some of the pictures, you can see a bit of it in the picture of the closed brush bag. The culprit: