To Buy Or Not To Buy: Holiday Brush Sets

During the Holidays it seems like everyone has some special deal that they are pushing.  That's because they do and they are.  When is it truly a value?  I'm here to help you sift through the holiday madness, and brush sets are a great place to start.  5 Brushes for $50?! I can stock up my kit (or makeup bag) for super cheap right? Well, not exactly.  The brushes sold as part of a kit look like the brushes in the full makeup line, however they are not the same for the following reasons:

• The brushes in the sets often lack the same fibers that the full size brushes contain.  This means if you are excited about getting a goat hair brush as part of a brush set, you may as well be equally excited about Santa coming because it's not real.  The sets often contain synthetic fibers, which to be fair, in many cases I prefer.  What this means for you is that the brush will not act the same or work the same as the brush you have grown to know and love.  There are some brushes that are synthetic in both the full size and set size, for these you won't notice much of a difference. 
• Machine made verses man made.  Some lines pride themselves on carrying handmade brushes, and often the holiday sets are not included in this.  In order to save costs, the brushes are machine made instead of hand made.
• Quality. "Sarah, what's wrong with machine made, synthetic brushes? Lots of lines do it." Yes, you are absolutely right.  However, I have noticed a huge drop in quality for the holiday brush sets.  To give you examples, the tops of the brushes often loosen and come of (the brush comes off the handle), the dye in the bristles bleeds and gets in your makeup, the handles crack, and the fibers are much more course and firm making them difficult to use in blending etc. 

Am I here to bash a good deal? Absolutely not.  Holiday brush sets are a great gift for someone just getting into makeup that needs brushes.  They are also a great companion for someone that travels a ton for work and doesn't want to lug around full size brushes or risk losing expensive brushes.  I like to keep mine in my purse or use them for body painting jobs where I know they may get stained.  In short,   holiday brush sets can be a great find and are certainly superior to using your fingers or sponges, but they are not a substitute for higher quality brushes that will last much longer.  You'll probably get two years out of them verses the ten years you can get out of others. When you're thinking about buying these ask three questions: 1) Machine made or man made 2) Synthetic or natural fibers 3) Do you like these or think they are the same quality (to the salesperson).  Odds are you'll get an honest-ish answer.  Remember, they do have sales goals and often a certain amount of sets to sell a day.