After lusting after the Zoeva Rose Golden Luxury Set for a looooong time, and then painstakingly waiting for them to be shipped over (damn you Luxola!), I finally have them in my possession (thank you to my lovely frands for bday gifting them to me!)! I've been using them pretty consistently since I got them a few weeks ago and many have quickly made it into my daily routine! I will say a few of these brushes have quite similar Real Techniques counterparts but Lena did an excellent review and comparison post including those!
Before I get into the brushes, I do want to mention the pouch they come packaged in. I was actually super excited for this haha, it's basically a dark brown, leather look pouch with rose gold "hardware". It's pretty dece quality and even has a little zipper pocket inside. It would make a lovely makeup bag, or even a great li'l clutch!
Packaging wise when it comes to the brushes themselves - oh man. These brushes are SO DAMN BOOTY-FULL. I have a legit hankering for all things rose gold/copper at the mo' (hold me back from the copper wares at Kmart) and these fit in perfectly with the current copper-accents-thang I have going on in my room at the moment. The handles are wood with rose gold lettering. The brushes just feel and look like good-ass quality, what more is there to say?! Oh, I also want to mention that so far none of these brushes have shed! :)
Let's start out with the face brushes shalt we?
102/Silk Finish
This is a brush I have heard lots of great things about, so I had fairly high expectations. Upon first use, I ain't gonn' lie, I was a bit disappointed! This brush is dense. Like much more dense than either the Real Techniques Buffing or Expert Face brushes. When it comes to buffing product in, I find the Silk Finish has less give and flexibility. I first used it with a thicker consistency base product and I find it didn't blend the product as easily or effortlessly - but in the end it gave a similar finish. I've tried it with a few different formulas now and will say it works better the more liquidy your foundation is. It's a great brush and buffs product in excellently, but sometimes just requires a bit more effort and isn't as quick!
106/Powder
I was a bit sceptical about this brush to begin with, it just seemed awfully floppy. Also I find it a little annoying that the handle on this one is a lot shorter? Idk. Anyway! This brush has fairly long bristles that are quite loose and fluffy. I didn't have an outright brush specifically for powder in my collection, so this brush slotted in perfectly! Contrary to my low expectations, this has become one of my most used. It's just so easy to use to set your foundation with any sort of powder. It applies just the right amount and isn't too huge but is big enough that is does it quickly and efficiently! Not much more to say - the synthetic bristles are super soft!
127/Luxe Sheer Cheek
I've already featured this guy in my favourites, so y'all know it's gewd. My collection was lacking an angled blush brush so I was super excited to get this one! The shape of the brush is actually super thin, but the bristles are soft, loose and fairly fluffy. It works excellently with pretty much any powder product; blush, bronzer and highlighter. It picks up just the right amount of product and is so easy to either tap or swish the product on. It blends out really easily and because it's fairly small you can get some precision with it. Seriously such a lovely brush!
110/Face Shape
This is probably the only brush that I don't get a tonne of use out of. There's just not a job that I've found for it that I love? It's super similar to the Real Techniques Contour Brush in that it's a small, fairly dense brush. I'd say, though, that it's smaller and denser, with a more rounded shape, so you can get real specific placement of product. I don't mind it for cream blush application and you could very well use it to blend out concealer and the like. I think it would work best for cream contour and highlight products though!
142/Concealer Buffer
This brush is practically identical to the Real Techniques Deluxe Crease brush, but denser. Again, like the Silk Finish, initially it was to dense for my liking. I also prefer this with more liquidy consistencies like the Maybelline Fit Me concealer over the NARS one. I've found I really like just tapping the product in and blending the edges, rather than just going straight in and buffing the product which can sometimes lessen the coverage. Still getting the hang of this one but I like that I have another concealer brush as I use them every day!
227/Luxe Soft Definer
Touted as a dupe for the MAC 217, you could say I was very excited to have this. Shockingly I didn't really have a brush like this before, the Real Techniques Base shadow brush is not as fluffy and a bit stiffer. Whelp kids, I GET THE HYPE. I've been using this brush pretty much every time I use eyeshadow. It's truly one of those "do it all" brushes. I particularly like it for applying my transition or crease shade though, and blending everything out. You can totally use the flat side to apply shadow though, and as it is quite thin you can get some amount of precision in the crease!
231/Luxe Petite Crease
This is quite a unique brush in my collection also. It's like a longer pencil brush that works excellently for placing colour precisely in the crease for a cut crease look or just to add some serious definition. It's not too dense so you can place colour and blend it slightly at the same time. It also works wonderfully to smudge out product on both upper and lower lashlines.
317/Wing Liner
It's in the name guys. The shape of this particular angled brush is very interesting - to me at least. It has a very steep gradient (ew, gradients), that almost curves slightly? I find the steep slope fits my eyes really well to plot out my wing when using gel liner, and then proceed to apply it. I haven't used it in my brows yet, just because I like the quickness of the thicker Real Techniques Brow brush, but I imagine this would work fairly well!
It goes without saying that these brushes are excellent quality, the bristles are super soft, they wash well and they just LOOK amazing. Though it is pricey to buy a whole set of 'em, it's totally worth it! The cheapest I've found this particular set for is $101.40 on BeautyBay, or 65 euro on the Zoeva website (works out to about $96). Considering you get eight brushes, it works out pretty cost efficiently at like $12 a brush! (wow, there was too much maths in this post).
Have you tried any Zoeva brushes?
