Perfectly Pink Bullet Crease Brush:
Oooooh boy... When I started this journey a few months ago to really learn about the craft and artistry of makeup, I really had no idea how deep the journey goes. Like any other art or craft, the more time and energy one gives to learning, the more one learns how much more there is to learn. The best makeup artists, in my opinion, are the ones that - even at the pinnacle of their craft at the commercial (market) level, they are constantly seeking and striving to stretch themselves as artists. Meaning - they are not satisfied with just fulfilling the quota of how societal standards require makeup application to be - in fact, they tend to chafe when they keep doing the same standard looks over and over again, even though they are masters at that craft. Instead, they continue to experiment with color, light, texture, and all the tactile functions which cause makeup to really come alive. Samantha, of the Pixiwoo sisters on Youtube, frequently mentions that if she didn't do a tutorial now and again for the pure pleasure of creating, she would "go mad." And I think that this is true of any creative personality.
At this point in my journey, I am still seeking to master the techniques that are currently being used. I have invested into makeup, more than any other products - including clothing, shoes(!), handbags, accessories, and all those other fun girly things that I love. I have (as previously mentioned) even gone so far as to sell couture handbags on ebay so that I could purchase more makeup. I don't even want to really think about how much I have invested into this passion in the last several months, but I am happy about every purchase and don't regret not building on my wardrobe at all this year. One of the products that I have been purchasing on a mass level are makeup brushes. I have both Sigma basic and premium brush kits (which mostly dupe MAC brushes - and pretty well, from what I have heard, otherwise I wouldn't have purchased them), as well as various sundry brushes from Sephora, Crown brushes, Nyx, and various other companies through which I have made purchases.
I am sure that as I continue to learn about brushes, I will continue to discover more uses for them. However, this post is about a few breakthroughs in understanding which have happened gradually - and then with a current purchase from Crown brush of a bullet point crease brush, a whole word opened up to me which was heretofore closed.
I would like to talk, in particular, about crease brushes and how to use them appropriately for an Asian eye. Because those of us with smaller eyes, less deeply set than our sisters of different races (excluding Southern and Southeast Asia, in which one sees more deeply set eyes in Indian, Middle-Eastern, Philippino and certain other nationalities), if you have ever taken a blending brush and put it gently to your carefully applied eye makeup, only to watch it blend away into a muddy mess - you know what I'm talking about. It is only in the last couple of days that I finally made a breakthrough that I believe is taking me to a different level (finally!) in makeup application.
Let's discuss the Sigma E45, which is a tapered blending brush. I bought this brush specifically because it has a pointed tip and a round body. I thought that the tip would help me blend areas that I was unable to easily blend before. Well, the thought was correct, but my lack of technique made this brush pretty much useless for me. I didn't realize until I just received the bullet point brush from Crown brushes (see top pic) that the way to use these brushes is to insert the tip into the "crease" - which, for Asian eyes, actually means the eye socket. When you sink the brush into the socket, it then easily shades and blends colors to perfection. And re-watching some 'Makeup by Ren-Ren' tutorials today, I realized that you can really use a large variety of blending blushes as long as you know where to place the brush. And again, the place to put it is to sink it right into the socket.
It finally clicked for me when I used that bullet point brush: the small point sinks easily into the socket, and any color is easily deposited by the tip and blended out by the rounder body of the brush. And then it all came together: the E45 is meant to pick up a very small amount of color on the tip of the brush, and the fluffy body then distrubutes the color evenly throughout the surface of the eye. This morning I tested this theory by using a light brown shade, and it worked perfectly. The E45 blended the color into the perfect shape above the crease, and then using the bullet brush, I was able to add darker browns and then a little bit of black into the outer eye corner. Then using the E45 again, I blended out the colors to get just the right amount of smokiness into the outer corner of the eye. A shimmery light beige tone on the inner corner and on the lid created a textbook smokey eye. Eureka!
If you're Asian with a small lid and hooded or no crease, that's the trick to blending out a smokey eye. Don't be afraid to push down onto the eye with the brush. In the beginning, I was really afraid of blending out colors because I thought I would lose the vividness of the tone, so I tried to blend really lightly. There are times when you need to use less pressure, but for the first mid-tone, used as a background for the look, go ahead and dig into the socket with the tip of the brush and blend away! The bigger the brush, the larger the area that it will blend out. The bullet point brush, for instance, is a small rounded brush with a sharp tip. This is perfect for adding dimension to the mid-tone color by using deeper colors on top of it.
Ok, I'm not going to talk about it anymore, because at some point, I think you just need to see it and really register what's happening. I'm going to create a tutorial soon which shows this process.... but for now, I am just excited to share the knowledge. I was re-watching some of my older videos, and was painfully struck by how tedious it was for me to blend out colors - and that is because I didn't know how to use the crease (socket) to ground the brush and blend the colors out. I think this is going to change how I do my eye makeup in the best possible way - and if you are a beginner at makeup application and have been stumped about how to blend out the colors using your brushes on your Asian crease-less eye, keep an eye out for the next few videos as I plan on creating a video that will specifically point out this process.
Oooooh boy... When I started this journey a few months ago to really learn about the craft and artistry of makeup, I really had no idea how deep the journey goes. Like any other art or craft, the more time and energy one gives to learning, the more one learns how much more there is to learn. The best makeup artists, in my opinion, are the ones that - even at the pinnacle of their craft at the commercial (market) level, they are constantly seeking and striving to stretch themselves as artists. Meaning - they are not satisfied with just fulfilling the quota of how societal standards require makeup application to be - in fact, they tend to chafe when they keep doing the same standard looks over and over again, even though they are masters at that craft. Instead, they continue to experiment with color, light, texture, and all the tactile functions which cause makeup to really come alive. Samantha, of the Pixiwoo sisters on Youtube, frequently mentions that if she didn't do a tutorial now and again for the pure pleasure of creating, she would "go mad." And I think that this is true of any creative personality.
At this point in my journey, I am still seeking to master the techniques that are currently being used. I have invested into makeup, more than any other products - including clothing, shoes(!), handbags, accessories, and all those other fun girly things that I love. I have (as previously mentioned) even gone so far as to sell couture handbags on ebay so that I could purchase more makeup. I don't even want to really think about how much I have invested into this passion in the last several months, but I am happy about every purchase and don't regret not building on my wardrobe at all this year. One of the products that I have been purchasing on a mass level are makeup brushes. I have both Sigma basic and premium brush kits (which mostly dupe MAC brushes - and pretty well, from what I have heard, otherwise I wouldn't have purchased them), as well as various sundry brushes from Sephora, Crown brushes, Nyx, and various other companies through which I have made purchases.
I am sure that as I continue to learn about brushes, I will continue to discover more uses for them. However, this post is about a few breakthroughs in understanding which have happened gradually - and then with a current purchase from Crown brush of a bullet point crease brush, a whole word opened up to me which was heretofore closed.
I would like to talk, in particular, about crease brushes and how to use them appropriately for an Asian eye. Because those of us with smaller eyes, less deeply set than our sisters of different races (excluding Southern and Southeast Asia, in which one sees more deeply set eyes in Indian, Middle-Eastern, Philippino and certain other nationalities), if you have ever taken a blending brush and put it gently to your carefully applied eye makeup, only to watch it blend away into a muddy mess - you know what I'm talking about. It is only in the last couple of days that I finally made a breakthrough that I believe is taking me to a different level (finally!) in makeup application.
Let's discuss the Sigma E45, which is a tapered blending brush. I bought this brush specifically because it has a pointed tip and a round body. I thought that the tip would help me blend areas that I was unable to easily blend before. Well, the thought was correct, but my lack of technique made this brush pretty much useless for me. I didn't realize until I just received the bullet point brush from Crown brushes (see top pic) that the way to use these brushes is to insert the tip into the "crease" - which, for Asian eyes, actually means the eye socket. When you sink the brush into the socket, it then easily shades and blends colors to perfection. And re-watching some 'Makeup by Ren-Ren' tutorials today, I realized that you can really use a large variety of blending blushes as long as you know where to place the brush. And again, the place to put it is to sink it right into the socket.
It finally clicked for me when I used that bullet point brush: the small point sinks easily into the socket, and any color is easily deposited by the tip and blended out by the rounder body of the brush. And then it all came together: the E45 is meant to pick up a very small amount of color on the tip of the brush, and the fluffy body then distrubutes the color evenly throughout the surface of the eye. This morning I tested this theory by using a light brown shade, and it worked perfectly. The E45 blended the color into the perfect shape above the crease, and then using the bullet brush, I was able to add darker browns and then a little bit of black into the outer eye corner. Then using the E45 again, I blended out the colors to get just the right amount of smokiness into the outer corner of the eye. A shimmery light beige tone on the inner corner and on the lid created a textbook smokey eye. Eureka!
If you're Asian with a small lid and hooded or no crease, that's the trick to blending out a smokey eye. Don't be afraid to push down onto the eye with the brush. In the beginning, I was really afraid of blending out colors because I thought I would lose the vividness of the tone, so I tried to blend really lightly. There are times when you need to use less pressure, but for the first mid-tone, used as a background for the look, go ahead and dig into the socket with the tip of the brush and blend away! The bigger the brush, the larger the area that it will blend out. The bullet point brush, for instance, is a small rounded brush with a sharp tip. This is perfect for adding dimension to the mid-tone color by using deeper colors on top of it.
Ok, I'm not going to talk about it anymore, because at some point, I think you just need to see it and really register what's happening. I'm going to create a tutorial soon which shows this process.... but for now, I am just excited to share the knowledge. I was re-watching some of my older videos, and was painfully struck by how tedious it was for me to blend out colors - and that is because I didn't know how to use the crease (socket) to ground the brush and blend the colors out. I think this is going to change how I do my eye makeup in the best possible way - and if you are a beginner at makeup application and have been stumped about how to blend out the colors using your brushes on your Asian crease-less eye, keep an eye out for the next few videos as I plan on creating a video that will specifically point out this process.
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