Testing Out Cheap Eyeshadow Brushes?!

If you've read round these parts before, you'll most likely know that in terms of makeup brushes - I am pretty much an exclusively Real Techniques lover. They're a nice, middle of the road-kinda brand that offers amazing quality tools at equally-amazingly reasonable prices and I just cannot fault them. Other than that, the only other brand I've ever sampled anything from has been Zoeva. I have a couple of their eye offerings in my stash too which I really rather love and recently thought about finally snapping up a full set (or two). Their sets always look amazing - especially the ones centred around the eyes - and I just feel like you can never have too many eye brushes, right? However, when browsing Amazon a few weeks ago, I came across this set of brushes. On first appearance, they look very similar to that of the Rose Gold Eye Brushes that I was eyeing up (geddit?) on the Zoeva website, but at a fraction of the price. Clearly, they are not exactly the same, but I was kinda interested in seeing whether they could be potentially classed as a dupe for the quality of both the offerings from Zoeva that I have tried, plus my extensive Real Techniques collection aswell. Let's find out, shall we?

Taking them out of the packaging for the first time, I could notice a slight chemical-y, paint-type smell. It's wasn't particularly overwhelming and disappeared as soon as I started using/washing the brushes, but it was the main thing which called out the fact that they were 'cheap' - if you get what I mean. Other than that, in terms of appearances themselves, they look rather pretty and rather comparative to the 'higher end' alternative. They've got the same matte black handle and rose gold barrel and a lot of similar brush shapes and styles, but just without any branding. So, looks-wise things are pretty even, but more importantly, how do they actually perform? As I said, there are a wide variety of brushes in the set - in a whole host of varying brush types - and I have to admit that having tried near to all of them, they are rather impressive. They're all incredibly soft and not at all scratchy - a must for makeup brushes in my opinion - and they work so well with whatever product you pair them with. The flatter brushes pack on the pigment effectively, while the crease brushes (all in varying sizes) fit into the crease and outer eye area like a dream - again, giving great colour payoff and placing the colour exactly where you want it, while still being able to buff it out at the same time. There's a good pencil-type brush and a couple of short and stubby brushes that are idea for smudging colour along the upper or lower lashlines and the two staples - a fine liner and a hard angled brush - are both pretty good too, keeping their shape while still allowing for some flexibility. The largest, fluffiest brush in the set is probably my most favourite - the perfect size for applying a transition shade as a first step, or simply giving soft definition to the crease/outer corner area and also for buffing out the edges of an entire eye look at the very end too.

Basically, all in all - I have little to no complaints about the set in general. Without being too much of a negative Nancy, I really thought there would something about these brushes that I would not particularly like and make them stand out like a very sore thumb against my usual faves in my stash. I was expecting them to be much less soft on the ol' peepers than they actually were and I did not have very high hopes for how they'd actually work at applying and blending product either, but you know what? I was actually rather pleasantly surprised as how they did not rate as low down as I predicted they would on both of those things. I still very much stand by the fact that the likes of Real Techniques and Zoeva are where its at if you're after makeup brushes that are perhaps a little more expensive, but still pretty affordable and you know they are going to be amazing quality and last (cause I obviously haven't seen if these cheaper ones do as of yet) but if you're a complete makeup brush newbie and just wanna test the water need some which you can experiment with, see what works for you and what types of brushes you want/need the most - picking up a set of an unbranded version may be a pretty good idea.