You may have noticed, that I have a great interest in trying out cheap brushes in general. I really enjoy a good affordable brush I can repurchase in times of need and I have found great brushes over the years which I use everyday and which don't break the bank. Essence has been one of the brands I keep coming back to for brushes all the time, but are all of them good?
Essence has many brushes and other makeup tools and some tools even come as a part of their limited collections. I have several brushes from the limited collections as well, but majority of the Essence brushes I own are from their stable line of products. Their brushes are very affordable, I don't remember all the prices but I will give you a rough estimate of how much I paid for each brush so you can get an idea. Essence is a very affordable brand in general and they make some amazing products. Especially over the years I think they stepped up their game a lot and they're coming up with such fun and new products that actually work really well.
I remember that the first makeup brush I ever bought was from Essence and it was a fluffy flat brush. I used to do everything with it, it was the only brush I used for my eyelooks. I lost it many years ago and never found it but since then, they revamped the packaging and the whole vibe of the brushes a several times and there are multiple styles of packaging I will show you in this post. Some of these brushes are almost a decade old. But you can see the improvement on the brushes as they were released.
Overall, I would say that considering the price and the performance of these, Essence brushes are some of my favorite brushes to use. Not every single one of them is my go-to, mostly because I have way to many brushes at this point, but there are some that are in my everyday routine for sure. In general, they are very good quality, don't shed and work very well. Majority of them is very easy to work with and they last very long time. Washing them doesn't effect the quality of their bristles or their performance at all. I also believe that the most expensive Essence brush I have is around 150 Crowns, which is still a very fair price.
The brush range they offer is very wide and there's about every type of brush possible now. They don't always have every brush in stock in the drugstore but they usually offer a decent amount of them. I also feel like people know at this point, that these brushes are worth the buy and they buy them out quite quickly.
Face brushes
I have many brushes from Essence, so let's first focus on the face brushes, because there are fewer of them.
Contouring Brush
You can tell that this one is quite old, however, I really liked the packaging of this line of brushes. This contouring brush used to be my go-to when contouring was a big thing and from time to time I still use it. It's a round flat brush, which is not too dense so it's actually very good for blending powders. It's a little too small for me to use it for anything else than contour, because I tend to use different brushes for bronzer, but it works really well, I just don't use contour that much anymore. I think it was roughly 100 Crowns and it's not available anymore, but I think they have an alternative for this brush for sure.
Bronzer Brush
This brush is in the newest style of packaging with the cream and gold handle and gray-white bristles. This is my everyday go-to bronzer brush and it has been for so many years now that I cannot even remember when I got it. It's round, slightly tapered but very fluffy. It's not too big, so you don't apply bronzer all over your face with it and you can focus it more where you want it. I struggle with too much bronzer a lot but this brush really lets you control the amount you lay down and also the placement. You can go very soft with it and just slightly hover with it to really place the product where you want and even use it to contour. Or you can press on it a little more and go for more dispersed bronzy look. It blends everything very well and it's very easy to work with. I believe it was around 120 Crowns.
Pac-Man Face Brush
This brush was a part of the limited edition collection which was PAC-MAN themed and I loved everything about it. It was around 130 Crowns, I think, and it's a great universal brush. You can use it to apply powder, bronzer, blush, pretty much everything where you don't need too much precision and you need a good blend. It's a domed brush that's not too dense and is truly universal. I wasn't sure how to use it at first, but I just use it for almost everything now and then.
Crystal Collection Face Brush
This face brush was also in a limited collection and its shape is just beautiful. Not gonna lie, I bought it mostly because of how it looked. This brush might still be in some Rossmann drugstores as they don't change up the limited collections that often. It was also around 130 Crowns, but this one doesn't seem to have the same quality as the others to me. The bristles are a little more prickly and there are couple bristles which are broken, too long of just off. I chopped off the most uneven ones and I usually use it for bronzer if I'm going for more intense look. It's domed and pretty fluffy but it has a more dense part in the middle so it picks up more product there and diffuses it less. I don't reach for it all the time, but sometimes when I feel really pale I go for it instead of the other bronzer brush I have.
Hololighter Brush
This is probably the smallest highlighter brush I've ever seen and I really like that. It's a tapered highlighter brush but it's very long and the top is quite small so you can get very precise with it if you want to use a blinding highlighter and don't want it all over your face. It's also quite sparse so it doesn't pick up too much product and you can build up any highlighter with it as well. If you prefer more strategically placed highlighter or you just find classical highlighter brushes too fluffy and large, this one might be the choice for you.
2 in 1 Colour Correcting & Contouring Brush
I never really understood which side is supposed to be which but this is a perfect example of a do-it-all brush. My favorite way to use this brush is actually eyeshadow, because the larger side is great for blending and the smaller side is a great pencil brush or a packing brush. It's also very nice for nose contour, because the bigger side is more flat than a regular eyeshadow brush. But I've used it for concealer as well and it's buffing it out very well. I think that it might be good even for placing cream contour, because precision is pretty important when using creams. It's working well for me in so many ways and it's my go-to brush when I travel, because I can use it for so many things. I would also recommend it if you're starting with eyeshadow, because you get a great 2in1 brush you can use to create so many eyelooks.
Eyeshadow brushes
Until recently, majority of my eyeshadow brushes was from Essence. I just really enjoy their eye brushes and they provide very good quality and different shapes for such good prices. I believe majority of these brushes are around 85 Crowns, some of them even less.
Eyebrow Brush
This particular brush is not available anymore but I believe they have a different one in their new line. This one is not my favorite at all to be honest. I used to use brow pomade all the time at one point and this brush is just too thick to use on your eyebrows. Even as a liner brush, it's just not precise enough. I use it only when I need to place a shadow or concealer very precisely and a liner brush cannot pick it up. But I don't gravitate towards this brush very often and I think they could work on a better brow brush for sure.
Glitter and Pigment Applicator
This is such a random thing but it's so usefull. If you ever use glitters, you know how messy they are. For pigments or glitter shadows, this silicone thingy is the best. It doesn't pick up everything 100%, some glitters are just too thick for it, but it's making a lot less mess than a regular brush, at least for me. I also like that it has many sharp edges so you can get very precise with the application and you can even apply glitter adhesive with it.
Eyeliner Brush
This is one of the older brushes but I'm sure that they probably didn't change eyeliner brush that much since I bought it. I used to love using this brush for eyebrow pomades because it's very thin and precise. I use it for liner as well when I go for powder or gel eyeliner because it's very easy to use, since it's very small. It's perfect for dragging the liner or just stamping it on.
Smudging Brush
If you like putting eyeshadow on your lower lashline as well as on the top, this brush is a great tool for you. It's very precise, it's thinner at the top and it works very well for smoking out the lower lashline. Especially if you're working with darker colors, this brush lets you be very precise right under the eye and lets you place the shadow exactly where you want it. It's also very good for buffing out eyeliner, but it's not enough precise to really buff out the whole wing, especially the pointy tip. But I still use it all the time and it's my go-to undereye brush.
Wood You Love Me? Eyeshadow Brush
This brush was a part of a limited collection but I still want to mention it. It has a "fat round pencil" brush side which I usually use for placing the shadow when I don't need the full pigmentation or buffing the crease when I don't need to blend it in any direction but I just want to stay in place with it. They thing is, I could use multiple different brushes for that, so this one is really not necessary. The other side is in a shape on an arrow. It's supposed to help you with the winged out look and honestly it doesn't really work for me at all so this side is more of a gimmick for me.
Blending Brush
This brush is the oldest one of them all in this post and I cannot even tell what's its name. It a blending brush, slightly tapered into a domed shape. You can tell that the bristles on this one are more rough and not as soft as on the new brushes. I still like using it from time to time for some focused blending, but it's worse quality than the other Essence brushes I own for sure.
Angled Crease Brush
To be fully honest, I don't know why I bought this brush at all. Maybe I thought it's going to be good for winging out the eye shape, but I don't use this brush for eyeshadow at all. It's a great brush for nose contour though. I like the density of it, because it can blend the contour right at placing it and makes it look very natural. I don't really like using it for eyeshadow at all though.
Eyeshadow Brush
The name of this one is not much telling you anything but it's the flat brush. I used to use it for shimmers all the time and honestly it doesn't work the best. I have different flat packing brushes I prefer much more now but it still works for certain formulas. It's short and very dense and fluffy at the same time, so it just cannot pick up more pressed formulas that well. Sometimes the shimmers don't really show up with it at all. But with mattes it usually works very well when you want to set a concealer for you cut crease or just pack on a color. I still use it and like it a lot but it's not my go-to shimmer brush anymore.
Eye Blender Brush
This brush is so old I cannot believe it hasn't fallen appart yet. This used to be my only blending brush for the longest time and I still love it. It's such a good big fluffy brush that just blends anything in a second. It's falling appart a little bit now, but I've been using an abusing this brushes for about 8 years and I still love it. I highly recommend Essence blending brushes, even though this one is not available anymore and I'm not sure they have one this fluffy at the moment. But this can fill my whole lid, crease, brow in a second.
Eye Blender Brush
Yeah, this one has the same name as the previous one, but this one is from the newest line. It's a blending brush that's way less fluffy that the previous one but it still works very well. I have multiple backups of this one because I like using it for blending the edges of more vibrant colors and creating complicated gradients. It's a really good brush and it's very universal as well. One of my favorite brushes from Essence for sure.
Short Blender Brush
I wasn't too sure about this brush at first and I still think they should make a smaller version of it. It's pretty good for blending the crease and creating a winged eyeshadow looks but it's a little chunky and I personally could use a more precise brush of the exact same shape. It's a little flattened, tapered and fluffy and not a typical brush style you would find in the drugstore and it's really handy for certain blending techniques. I don't use it everytime I do my eyeshadow, but it's really nice for a straight long blend and placing color.
Final thoughts
I've been using these brushes for years and I really like majority of them. If you feel like trying any brush from Essence, I would probably say go for it. The price on these is great and my experience is that you will end up with a good brush. There are ones I wouldn't recommend and I would be careful about the limited edition brushes, as the Crystal one I have is not the greatest quality.
If was to recommend some of them, I would say go for the bronzer and the highlighter brush and any blending eyeshadow brush and the smudger. And of course, the dual sided concealer-corrector brush. Those are my absolute favorite ones and I promise you won't be let down by those.
Overall, I think that Essence brushes are one of the best brushes in the drugstore and their pricepoint is hard to beat. They last a long time, perform well, wash well and they have many different brushes to offer so you will probably find any brush you want.
Have you tried any of the Essence brushes? Let me know in the comments how you feel about them and thanks for reading!
Comments