Review: EcoTools Retractable Kabuki

Name: EcoTools Retractable Kabuki

Product: 5/5

Price: $7-10

Available: Target, Walgreens, Ulta and other stores that sell EcoTools

I was lucky to find this brush at a local Walgreens a couple of months ago. I had been hearing about it for a while, and I jumped on the chance to purchase this brush, especially since this was the last one in the store. This was actually my first retractable kabuki I’ve owned, and the only kabuki brush that I actually liked. This has been toted as a very affordable alternative to Too Faced’s Bear Kabuki in terms of softness and how dense it is.

I love this brush. Plain and simple. It applies my mineral foundation like a dream and a half. It gives me good, buildable coverage without making my skin looky cakey. It buffs in the product with the full head, and there is absolutely ZERO prickli-ness that can happen with cheap and crappily made brushes. This is extremely well made, and I have been using mine for a while now, and cleaned it several times with no fall out. The fibers are synthetic, which makes it perfect for buffing in liquid foundation, which is what I do now for my foundations. It makes the application extremely fast and easy. The brush itself is housed in recycled aluminum, which makes this brush very, very eco friendly for those who are limiting their carbon foot print. I highly recommend this brush to everyone who wants an amazing kabuki brush that is extremely affordable and just plain cute!

My Crease Brushes :-)

I recently took some pictures of my crease brushes today, and I thought I would share them with you. A few months ago I wrote a post about two brushes that were similar to the MAC 226 brush. Well, since then I have found a third brush to add to that group, and they are in this picture. I will make a comparison post soon!

From left to right:

*SK Old Crease Brush from a long time ago
*SK Pointed Crease Brush
*SK Large Crease Brush
*SK Crease Brush from one of the Holiday Sets last year
*Eco Tools Crease Brush from the Mineral Makeup Brush set w/ the Mini Kabuki
*Studio Tools Eye Contour Brush (Crease)
*Auraline Cool Crease Brush
*Auraline 219 Precision Crease Brush
*Auraline 252 Mini Precision Crease Brush
*Auraline 204 Crease Brush
For now, I’ll leave it up to you guys to figure out which ones are the 226 dupes.

Target Haul

I finally got around to taking pictures of my Target haul, that did a while ago. I have lots of hauls to catch up with, so expect a lot of haul posts to appear. I didn’t purchase everything at once. So don’t think it was one gigantic mega haul. LOL.

At Target, a lot of Sonia Kashuk products had been clearanced out, so naturally I took advantage of the deep discount to pick a few items. Because, of course, I don’t have enough product already.

Sonia Kashuk Lip Palettes:

Shimmering Sorbets: This is a very pretty shimmery palette that go from natural and sheer to a bright pop of color for the summer. I, of course had to swatch everything ASAP and you can see where I accidently dug my lip brush into the lippie and messed it up. LOL.

Closed:

Opened:

Natural Nudes:

Closed:

Opened:

Sonia Kashuk Enhanced Eyeshadow:

Burnished: This is a grayish – taupe color that is extremely pigmented and very soft and blendable. Gorgeous!!

Closed:

Opened:

Sonia Kashuk Eye Shadow Quad:

Striking Jewels: This is a gorgeous quad with a deep emerald green, a matte tan, a shimmery bronzy brown and a deep bronzy purple.

Closed:

Opened:

Revlon Super Lustrous:

Shine That Pink: This is a meduim pink that is absolutely beautiful. The best part is that this has an SPF of 15!

Studio Tools:

Dual Finish Brush: This is the newest skunk brush on the market, and in my opinion, it’s the best quality one with the very best price: $6.99

In package:

Out of the Packaging:

That’s all for now!

Various Hauls

This is basically a composite collection of hauls from this past week.

Target:

Milani:

Glimmer Stripes in Pink Glimmer

Milani Nailpolish in Raspberry Fusion

Studio Tools Dual Finish Brush – A better than dupe of the 188

Rimmel Underground Nailpolish:

Hard Edged

Night Life

Walgreens:

Wet N Wild:

Mega Glo Powder in Strike-A-Pose-Rose, Spotlight Peach, Catwalk Pink, and Starlight Bronze

Speed Glosses: Untamed, Manic, Frantic, and Fired – Up

Silk Finish Blush / Bronzzer:

Pearlescent Pink

Acapulco Glow

EcoTools:

Retractable Kabuki

MAC:

Rubenesque Paint Pot

Circa Plum

I think I bought too much crap! LOL. If you want a review of anything let me know please

My New Bronzer Brush!!!!!!

I have found the BEST bronzer brush for me. I was watching a tutorial video on youtube, and I watched the girl apply bronzer all over her face with a big, fluffy kabuki brush. Afterwards, her face looked AMAZING afterwards and that sent me on my quest to find a similar brush that would work for me.

See, I have a ton of bronzers, and I had no way to apply them, so that I would happy with the result. Well, I was in Marshell’s the other day and I came across the Sugar Body Brush for $3.99. Which is an oversized kabuki brush that was similar to what the guru used in her video. So I picked it up to give it a try. This brush normally runs about $26, so it was a freakin steal!!

I am planning on reviewing it later, but I just wanted to share!!!

Tease: MAC 226 DUPES

Hey everyone, I just thought I’d post this little teaser for all of you…. I have found not one but TWO dupes for the super popular and super sold out MAC brush, the 226 blending brush.

***I DO NOT HAVE THE 226, BUT I HAVE SHOWN BOTH OF THESE BRUSHES TO A FRIEND WHO IS A MAC ARTIST AND SHE SAYS THEY ARE EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY CLOSE***

Just to tease you guys a little bit more…. Both of the brushes I have in my collection are each under $5!! And one very easily found in a certain store…. The other one is strictly online…

From what I can tell you right now, I am very glad that I purchased both brushes, because one is slightly smaller and firmer than the other, but both have that pointed end that made the 226 so damn popular.

So if you want to know what brushes I am talking about… keep reading the blog, and you will soon know of which brushes you NEED in your collection!

Collective Hauls: Coastal Scents, Walgreens…

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been celebrating the haul-a-days early. I hit up a few drugstore  sales, and took advantage of Cyber Monday sales. I love when brands such as Wet N Wild and Jane go BOGO Free, because it doesn’t happen as much with Revlon. Anyway here are my hauls from the past few weeks.

The first things I bought were a new foundation, because I am getting a little tired of my Aubrey Nicole foundation. I still love it, but I just wanted a change, something for the winter months. So when I saw that CVS was doing a promotion with Maybeline Power Mineral Liquid foundation, I decided to give it a whirl. I picked up color Nude – which is just about a perfect match for me. It’s as good as it’s going to get in drugstore foundations. I liked the foundie so much, that I ended up picking up a second bottle during the sale.

(Review of this foundie is coming soon)

Another haul that I picked up was from Walgreens. Since Walgreens and CVS are right next to each other, it makes it really easy to hit up both of these stores at the same time. For this week, Walgreens has Wet N Wild on sale for BOGO Free, and had a bunch of stuff that is being discontinued on clearance. One of the things I love about Walgreens is that when something is on clearance it also is still eligible for the BOGO Free sales. So I managed to score four of the twist up stick blushes that are being discontinued for about a $1 a piece. I also grabbed up two of the Loreal Colour Juice sheer lipsticks. I am not sure if these are being discontinued, but I snapped up two of them for $4.99. I love this things, they are quite pigmented and super glossy. I also love the taste and smell of these things. Very fruity.

I also got in my first haul from Coastal Scents today as well. I had heard some extremely good things about their new Gel Liners, and many beauty gurus on youtube had mentioned that they were basically good dupes for MAC Fluidlines, and were half the price of the Fluidlines. The Gel Liners are normally $6.95, and I picked up 6 of the ten colors that they are offering, I didn’t get their black, brown or light blue colors, because I already have all the HIP creme liners and I still have a ton of my creme liners left. So I focused on the other colors, getting the silver, gold and other colors that I didn’t have. I’ve played with some of the colors earlier today and they apply very much like the Fluidlines I already have. I plan on giving my new Gel Liners a better test tomorrow. I also picked up two eyeliner brushes from Coastal Scents as well, because someone recommended them to me to use with the liners. Since I didn’t have any decent slanted eyeliner brushes, I bit the bullet and grabbed them at $1.85 a piece. I like them a lot, and I plan on writing a review of them soon.

I also grabbed some new fragrance oils, because I LOVE burning oils. I love these as much as makeup. They are like crack to me! I knew that Coastal Scents sold fragrance oils and they were only $3 for 2 oz bottle, which is a total steal compared to Bath & Body Works, The Body Shop and Yankee Candle. I picked up two scents, White Plum and English Holly, and both are amazing. They filled my room with fragrance quickly and kept the scent going for several hours. I was very pleased.

Finally, I hit up the new store in my local mall, Fragrant Body Oilz, which I have mentioned previously on this blog. I purchased 6  bottles of 1 oz oils for $20, which is also a really good deal. I am trying these oils out, and I plan on writing more about them in the future. So far I am really pleased with my purchases and I plan on making more in the future. Other fragrance oils fanatics would love this company

EcoTools – Earth Friendly Makeup Brushes

Paris Presents made a huge splash earlier this year when they released a new line of makeup brushes called EcoTools. These brushes are very earth friendly, they are made from bamboo, which is a plant that can grow about 4 ft in one day, recycled aluminum, and synthetic bristles.

These brushes run in the price range of $3.99 to $10.99 for the 5 piece set. These brushes are extremely well made, and you definitely get your money’s worth. These can be picked up in a variety of stores, including Walgreens, KMart, Target, Ulta, CVS and Albertsons. You can also pick these up online at Drugstore.Com and Walgreens.Com.

I personally own the 5 piece set and the full sized powder brush. The powder brush cost all of $7.99, which makes it cheaper than my EOB powder brush was $9.99 and the EcoTools brush is much softer and distributes product better. The 5 piece contains a blush brush, eyeshadow brush, eyeliner brush, concealer brush and eyebrow comb/ brush combo. The brushes in the set are full sized brushes, the blush brush is almost the same size as my powder brush.

Aromaleigh and Target Haul!

I hit up Aromaleigh last night to take advantage of their 15% off discount and I decided to pick up some of Aromaleigh’s new Ultra Resolution Finishing Powder, which is supposed to be the exact same thing as Makeup Forever’s HD powder. I have never tried the MUFE HD powder, so this will be interesting to check out.

Here is some information from the Aromaleigh website concerning the new powder….

It’s a new “High Definition” super-fine finishing powder that you’ll fall in love with…

Now closer than before: A flawless, soft-focus, pore-less, even appearance that is worthy of even a digital camera ultra-high-resolution close up!

Helps to reduces the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles and imperfections. Light as a feather, you’ll barely know that you’ve applied Ultra-Resolution Finishing Powder. It glides effortlessly over your skin like silk in a smooth, even layer. Application is a breeze! It’s so soft, smooth and silky that you’ll adore the way that it feels on your skin… and as a final step to your mineral makeup routine.

Ultra Resolution Finishing Powder is available in two shades- “clear” and “translucent”. The “clear” shade should work for just about everyone but those with dark skintones- specifically, women of color, or those with ethnic skintones. We created the “translucent” shade after testing and reading a lot of product reviews of a similar product only offered in clear… and we felt that some consumers felt that a colored version was necessary. So we created one! Again, this “translucent” version is for women with dark skin. If your skin is not dark and very pigmented, the clear (invisible) version will be fine for you.

Size: This product is packaged in our “20 gram” clear sifter jar, which holds .5 oz. net vol of product, or an amount of product which is 6 grams net wt. (approximately .2 oz) Yes, our product is a great deal in comparison to the same exact product being sold exclusively on a major makeup site for .35 oz. for $30… and we’ve got two color choices for you! )

Ingredients: silica (translucent also contains mica (CI 77019), iron oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499) ).

So I’ll review this product when it comes in. I have HUGE pores and blackheads (…eww) on my nose so hopefully this will help my complexion!

The other thing I grabbed from Aromaleigh was their duo fiber eyeshadow brush, which is supposed to be faboulous for light application and blending of darker and pigmented eyeshadows. Like the powder I purchased all the reviews on Makeup Alley for this products were positive and had 4-5 stars.

Here is the description from the site:

This fabulously silky and smooth 1/2″ x 1/2″ sized brush head eyeshadow brush is amazing for sweeping shimmering mineral shadows across your lids, layering for a soft look or more intensity. This is our brush of choice for intensely pigmented eyeshadows. It makes the application of deep or very bright shadows a breeze!!!

This luxurious brush measueres 5.75″ long including the brush head.

I love anything and everything that has to do with duo fiber brushes, and I’m  constantly looking for new skunk brushes to add to my collection and I hope this will be a good investment. My love of all things skunk leads me to my next purchase from Target today. I came across a new skunk brush from the Sonia Kushak line called the “Higlighting Brush.” This brush is fairly new to the line, its debut was this past spring. Believe it or not, I actually do NOT own the  MAC  187 or  the 188, scandalous I know! I just can’t justify spending $45 on a single makeup brush, no matter what the quality.

However, I don’t think that spending $45 is not going to be a problem anymore, because after pruchasing my brush for $12.99 at Target I walked over to the mall and hit up the MAC counter with my new brush to do some comparing between my new find and the #187. I and the MAC artist both examined the brushes side by side and she even agreed that the Sonia Kushak brush was almost exactly like the MAC one. This was after she held the brush and felt the head of it.

There are a couple of differences between the two brushes, other than the $30 premium, the Kushak brush is slightly less dense than the 187 and the head is also slightly smaller. These differences are slight, and were not enough for me to fork over nearly $50 for the 187, this doesn’t mean that I don’t still crave the 187, but I’m currently satisfied with my new brush. I plan on getting the 187 when the holiday collections come out in October, but this way I’ll get 5 brushes for a few bucks more than I would for the full size 187.

I’ll do a review of the Sonia Kushak brush soon, after I give it a few test runs over the next couple of weeks. I also plan on writing reviews on the Aromaleigh brush and HD powder as well. I’ll even try to do a comparision of the Aromaleigh powder and the MUFE powder, if I can get a freebie sample of it from Sephora…

Until next time!

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