Way way back in August I was lucky enough to win a set of the Spectrum Brushes from the #NottsAlzheimersMeetup raffle and after months of testing them out, I thought a review was on the cards! I have seen so many amazing Instagram pictures of these brushes and they look gorgeous but I wanted to chat today about how I find the actual brushes to use!

I received a set of 8 brushes and also a single brush which was great as it covered both eye brushes and face brushes so it gave me a good chance to test out the brand! The brushes are all synthetic and completely vegan friendly which is great as, personally, I don’t feel that brushes should have anything to do with animal products. Synthetic brushes have improved so much over the years that real hair brushes are just not needed anymore and I’m so pleased about that!

For me, the obvious comparison brand for Spectrum is Real Techniques, whose brushes I’ve been using for years and years! I have to say that I think Real Techniques brushes are better at blending and also in the quality department. These Spectrum brushes do feel quite cheap, not in the brush itself but in the hairs. I find that they are way too soft to get a good application and the fact that they are so fluffy means that you lose a lot of product. Real Techniques brushes are much more densely packed yet still enable you to get a good blend and a soft focus finish if you so desire!

The brush that I like the most is one that I actually got two of and that’s the A04. It’s a rounded medium sized brush that I find is great for blush or highlight, where you don’t want as much product on the face. This brush does diffuse the product nicely and is the perfect size for use on the cheeks. I’ve got to be honest and say that other than the A04, I don’t reach for the rest of the brushes that often as my Morphe Eye Brushes and Real Techniques face brushes are miles better! The eye brushes just don’t pack the pigment on like I’m used to and they don’t blend out the edges very well either unfortunately. My least favourite was probably the big powder brush as it was so floppy you couldn’t even tell if you’d applied any powder to your face at all!

Now if you like a very natural finish, then I would say that these could be okay for you as they don’t apply a lot of product. However, if you are like me and are used to being able to see what you are working with then I wouldn’t recommend these. The only one I would recommend is the A04 as that is actually quite a nice brush, however I have had some hairs shed which I wasn’t expecting! All in all, these are beautiful, Instagram-worthy brushes that look amazing on your dressing table. But in practice they don’t perform as well as i’d like them too for the price and I would definitely recommend the likes of Real Techniques and Morphe over the Spectrum brushes. They come in somewhere between Morphe and Real Techniques in the price department, but both completely out perform them!

Have you tried Spectrum Brushes? What did you think of them? Are there certain brushes that perform better than others?

Much Love

xoxo