Beauty Inside Art

Ever since I started watching beauty videos on YouTube, two-three years ago, people have been talking about Sigma makeup brushes. But with so many Sigma affiliates out there, how can we be sure that they are actually worth the hype? No need to worry my dears, for I will be reviewing eight brushes that I have own for a long time and trust me I will be 100% honest, as I am not an affiliate of the brand. (Any links in this post are the normal links to the sigma website.)

Small Contour - F05: I was a bit disappointed when I first tried this brush. I thought it would have been better, because some of my favourite youtube, beauty gurus were using and recommending it. I expected it to be softer and to blend the colour better, like my F40 brush. When I used it to contour my cheeks, I felt the need to use another brush to blend it out, as this wasn't very good at it. But it works fine when using a light hand. Also, this sheds when washing and using. In addition, from the first wash, it colourised the water blue, and up until now that happens, but in a very minor manner. I've also noticed this with other brushes, like the F50 Duo Fibre brush that sort of lightly stained the white bristles blue. I don't see myself using this very often and with all honesty I don't recommend it.

Foundation - F60: I haven't use this in a very long time, basically because I dislike it. I hated applying my LR Foundation with this, as it wouldn't blend nicely on my nose. I have tried using it with cream highlighter and it wasn't an impressive application. To be honest, I used this today to apply my BB Cream, for this blog post, and it wasn't as bad as I remembered. I just don't enjoy using it, and you have to blend well so you avoid the brush stroke effect. 

Round Top Kabuki - F82: This is a brilliant brush, that I've loved from its very first use. Very dense, blends foundation, BB cream, powder like a dream. I find it to be my best choice when it comes to apply my base. For some lazy days I've used it to blend my concealer, too. Because of the thickness and density of this brush it's a bit tricky with cleaning.

Large Angled Contour - F40: Here's another brush I really like. Soft, fluffy and white. Well, more of a light ivory colour, to be exact. I have a weak spot for white brushes. I love it to apply bronzer and contour or to blend my blusher. Most of the time, I don't apply my blusher with this as I find it a bit big for my face and I always end up applying too much, unless it's a light colour. Today I tried this with a light pink blush and it was lovely, so I wouldn't recommend to use it with a dark and very pigmented colour.

Flat Definer - E15: This is a brush that I have been using for a long time. I think this might be the first brush I bought from Sigma, after seeing people use it on YouTube. It's dense, but soft at the same time, great for applying eyeshadow as liner. It also works good with gel liner, tight-lining and eyebrow powder. I really like it.

Blending - E25: If you've ordered from Sigma in the past, you might be familiar with this brush as they used to give a travel size of this with orders over $30. I have three of these brushes, one is the double ended brush from the Bare Palette (review here), and the other two the travel size. This brush is one of my favourite eye brushes, if not my favourite. You can literally use this for everything. Applying and blending eyeshadow, concealer and under-eye powder. You can create a complete eye makeup look just by using this brush alone. I can show you in another post if you're interested. To sum up, it's soft, fluffy and white. Need I say more?

Pencil - E30: This is the other side of my double ended brush. Another great brush and a very versatile one too. Concealer, powder, eyeshadow and eyebrow powder are the things I've used it for. This one also is a brush that you can do a full eye makeup with the addition of eyeliner. Again, it's white, soft and blends well enough. It's just lovely.

Eye Shading - E55: I use this brush to apply my eyeshadow on my eyelids. It's not very good in the blending department, so I'd recommend to use another brush for that. It's not one of my favourite eye makeup brushes, as this isn't as soft as the previous brushes mentioned. Personally, I think my cheaper, older LR shader, which is flatter applies eyeshadow better. Such a shame it's no longer available. I think I remember some shedding from it's early days. Today, I used it to apply cream eyeshadow for the first time and there was bristle stuck on my eyelid.

In conclusion, Sigma brushes are good, some are great and some are meh. Keep in mind that these makeup brushes are not all unique shape-wise. I've never used any Mac brushes to compare them to and the Coastal Scents ones I have are okay. I've also got two Real Techniques brushes that I absolutely love. The first cosmetic brushes I ever bought were from eBay and they weren't good at all. Overall, the Sigma ones are a good buy, but the shipping costs are not worth the purchase when you live in Cyprus.