Brushed With Greatness Project

Trish Gold Handle
By Cavewoman

What you are looking at is the treasure of my makeup collection, and it represents the best of all of my makeup brushes. Many years ago, over ten years at least, I was at Saks in Cleveland with Cousin Elaine, and I decided to purchase a Trish McEvoy planner. I chose a patent leather style (discontinued shortly thereafter) three "pages" for inside the planner (unavailable shortly after) with shadows (round pans, no longer available) striped shadow-blush-liner pans in a rectangular shape (discontinued almost immediatly after I bought mine) and pressed powder (ditto.) I purchased about six or seven brushes that day too, with the elegant gold-painted wood handles. (You guessed it.) Good thing that my obsession with Trish brushes brought me back to the store to continue collecting them, because within months, gold handle brushes at Trish were replaced with cheesy lucite clear handles. I've even swapped on the makeupalley to obtain a few more of the gold handle brushes. And so I present my collection, and as you can see, the years have been kind to them. I wash them in whatever facial cleanser I use (a gel cleanser) or sometimes in whatever antibacterial liquid hand soap happens to be on the bathroom sink at the time. I carefully work the suds through the bristles, rinse thoroughly under running water, press the bristles carefully in a face cloth to remove as much water as I can, re-shaping the bristles to their original shape, and then I lay them on a towel on my bathroom chair, bristles hanging over the edge, to air dry them. Sounds like a lot of work, but as you can see, they are holding up perfectly. They never shed and they always perform.



For eyes, my favorite shadow brush is #40, a flat shape with a domed tip. #21 is the same shape but slightly longer bristles. #29 works perfectly for a crease color, and the #11 flat synthetic bristle is great for gel eyeliners.
There are a few very tiny brushes (#17)that work great for using shadows as a liner, too.

For the face, my all time favorite blush brush is the #2A. It is the perfect flat, dome shaped, tapered bristle brush for just about any powder blush. The #2B is just a bit longer in the bristles and a bit more loosely packed into the ferrule, which is nice for a lighter application. When I decided to buy the #2B, there were no more in the store, and I convinced the SA to sell me her tester. She's marked the tip of the gold handle with a black marker, but it didn't matter to me.
I love the white goat hair #22 which has a round ferrule, for dusting on highlighting powder. I think you might even see a bit of MAC beauty powder on those bristles. #37 is a fluffy loose-powder brush that I even use for blush sometimes. The sculpting on the dome is just about as perfect as round powder brush can get. It has more of a taper than most dome brushes, which insures that powder goes on evenly and not all in one place on the face. You might notice a very stubby, flat-top, round brush in one of the photos. This is #M20, M for mini, I guess, but this brush has become my favorite for applying loose mineral foundations. It's a buffing brush that gives an even application of the powder foundations, and the flat top is perfect for buffing the minerals into the skin so they don't clump or gather in areas on the face. I can't rave enough about this style of brush for applying loose mineral foundations.

Even though my patent leather planner sits in a drawer in my linen closet, alone in obsolescence, I'm happy that I invested in the gold handle brush collection. These are the workhorses of my brushes, always reliable, maintaining their softness, holding up well after all these years of use. Just like a chef who has dozens of knives in the kitchen and a specific use for each one, a makeup lover needs her tools, too! The perfect one, to do the job, perfectly!

Disclosure: These products were purchased by the reviewer, Cavewoman