Category Archives: MUFE

My Favorite Face Makeup Brushes

Favorite Face Brushes

Continuing on with my brushes series, here are my favorite face makeup brushes. If you missed it, I posted about my favorite eye makeup brushes here. These are definitely a work in progress; I have a couple brushes that I’d like to upgrade – but here are my favorites at the moment, organized by category.

Foundation: Sigma F80

I’ve written before about the Sigma F80 – it’s by far my favorite foundation brush! It gives a flawless application, and is the only foundation brush I ever use (though I do sometimes use a beautyblender or my fingers). Highly recommended!

Powder: Ecotools Bronzer brush, ELF Complexion brush

I love the ecotools bronzing brush – it’s $10, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop using it. I use it to buff in either power foundation (usually Pur Minerals) or setting powder. If I want a light veil of powder instead, or to brush away excess powder I use the ELF Complexion brush. I’m happy with the ELF brush for now – it’s soft and well made – but I will eventually upgrade to a natural hair brush that is even softer. Lately – since taking these pictures – I’ve also been using the Hakuhodo J110 for setting powder. The smaller size is working really well for me.

Blush: Hakuhodo K020, Hakuhodo J110, MAC 188

These are the three brushes that I was using exclusively for blush at the time I took these photos. As I mentioned above, I’m currently using the Hakuhodo J110 for powder, and loving it for that purpose!

Before I got the Hakuhodo K020, I used the MAC 188 for my most pigmented blush. Lately, I’ve been using the K020 for my medium to very pigmented blush, and the 188 has been getting less use; however, it’s still a great brush for pigmented blush, so I wanted to include it in this round-up.

Contour & Blush brushes: Sonia Kashuk Medium Angled Multipurpose brush, MUFE 24S

I use both of these brushes for both blush and contouring. I use the Sonia Kashuk brush for my less pigmented blushes, and occasionally use it to contour, while I use the MUFE 24S to contour most days, and occasionally use it for my less pigmented brushes. I love the shape of both of these, but I’m considering upgrading both. The Sonia Kashuk has been a great brush for a year or so, but it’s starting to shed; the MUFE brush is scratchier and a little less dense than ideal.

Highlighting: ELF Mineral Blending Eye Brush, Illamasqua Blending Brush 2

I use two different eye brushes for highlighting. The ELF Mineral Blending Eye Brush is soft, well made, and perfect for highlighting down the bridge of my nose and my cupid’s bow. The Illamasqua Blending Brush 2 is FAR too large for me to use for my eyes, but is fantastic to use to highlight my cheekbones. Both of these are perfect for their purposes!

And, that is a lot of brushes! Do you use any of my favorites?

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Make Up For Ever Smoky Lash Mascara Review, Swatches, Photos

MUFE Smoky Lash mini mascara

Several months ago, I purchased a mascara sampler from Sephora that included a mini-sized Make Up For Ever Smoky Lash Extra Black Mascara. I try not to keep too many mascaras open at once, so it’s taken a while for me to open it up.

Although I currently have a few other mascaras open – Jordana, an Hourglass mini (I finished the first one, and loved it so much I bought another mini off Ebay), the purple Maybelline – which doesn’t really count, I think, and a Japanese mascara I have yet to review – my curiosity got the better of me. MUFE Smoky Lash seems to get good reviews, and I was curious to see if I would like it.

MUFE Smoky Lash – wand

Smoky Lash has a traditional-type wand, with very full bristles. Generally, I don’t like this type of wand – I prefer either a rubber wand (like -->Maybelline One-by-One’s --> wand), or a traditional type wand with smaller, more separated bristles (like the Jordana mascara’s wand). I find that this type of very full wand makes my lashes clump a little. And, true to form, I had some clumping with this mascara.

MUFE Smoky Lash applied

Overall, I feel sort of neutral about the quality of this mascara. It’s fine – it gives me good volume and length – but nothing spectacular. It clumps a bit – but not too badly. The good news is that it wore very well, and did not flake or smudge at all, even when I rubbed my eyes. I had no trouble removing it.

It retails for $23, and I would not pay that for it – there are plenty of less expensive mascaras that perform just as well. It does come in a few other colors – including plum, blue, and green – and it might be a nice option for a good quality colored mascara; it’s certainly better quality than the purple Maybelline I just reviewed!

Mascara is such an individual makeup product though; like foundation, it seems to behave differently on everyone, and there’s really no substitute for trying different mascaras out for yourself.

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Make Up For Ever Sculpting Kit 2 Review, Swatches, Photos

On a recent trip to the Make Up For Ever boutique, I picked up MUFE’s Sculpting Kit in #2 (it comes in four shades). The duo consists of two matte powders; one to contour, and one to highlight.

MUFE’s Sculpting Kit is packaged in a very simple plastic palette with a clear cover. It is very functional – it’s easy to see what you’re working with – though not particularly beautiful.

Both of the powders are very high quality. The textures are great – soft, silky, and blendable. They last very well on my normal to dry skin. They have just the right level of pigmentation for contouring / highlighting products; the first layer is sheer, but they’re buildable to any level of depth that I want.

Heavy swatches:

Overall, I really like this kit, and I’m happy to own it. I’ve been using it every day since I bought it. However, if you’re on a budget, I would suggest buying the MAC Pro Sculpting powder in Sculpt, which is extremely similar (or whichever sculpting powder is best for your skintone), then using a matte offwhite eyeshadow to highlight. This will give you an identical, or at least very similar, look for less cost.

I bought the MUFE Sculping Kit at the Los Angeles MUFE store, but it’s also available at Sephora stores and Sephora.com.

This post contains an affiliate link. For more information please see my disclosure policy.

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Contour and Sculpting Powder Comparison, Swatches

Benefit Hoola; MAC Sculpt; MUFE Sculpting Kit #2

I’ve been on a contour powder kick lately; when I visited Make Up For Ever LA and bought the Sculpting Duo, I also visited the nearby MAC Pro store and bought MAC Sculpting Powder in Scupt, a contouring powder.

Today, I have comparison swatches of my favorite contouring products for you: MUFE Sculpting Duo #2, MAC Sculpt, and Benefit Hoola. I’ll have full reviews of the MUFE and MAC contouring products up later this week.

I was surprised to find out that Benefit Hoola – which had previously been my favorite contouring product – is much more yellow than the two products actually designed for contouring. I probably won’t use Hoola for contouring at all in the future, and will only use the actually contour products.

It’s hard to tell from the swatches – though you can see it a little in the product photos – but MAC Sculpt is a little bit lighter than the MUFE powder, which is little bit deeper. Overall though, they’re extremely similar, and there’s really no need to own both – though I’ll eventually use both up, since they’re really the perfect shade for me!

What’s your favorite contouring product?

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My Visit to Make Up For Ever Los Angeles

I’m lucky to live near the Make Up For Ever flagship boutique, which is located in Los Angeles. Today, I decided to go check it out – and I had a really wonderful experience. As I was browsing, I noticed that they offer free makeup lessons with purchase. I asked about them – and although they generally recommend getting a reservation – the store was slow enough this morning that I was able to get an on-the-spot lesson.

The makeup artist who helped me was named Brittany, and I cannot recommend her highly enough – she’s very talented, helpful, and friendly. I was interested in buying one of the Sculpting Kits, which contain a matte contour and matte highlight. Brittany recommended #2, which I will review in full in a separate post. Then, I sat down, and she applied contour, blush, and highlight, explaining carefully what she was doing and how to do it.

She did a really great job – it was very natural looking, yet more sculpted than I looked without the product, sort of a “my cheekbones but better” look that I can see myself doing during the daytime. I can also use the same contour powder, but with a shimmery highlighter (of which I have plenty), at night.

I decided to buy both the contour duo and the brush Brittany used; I’ve always used angled brush to contour, but I really liked the method she showed me using a flatter, non-angled brush (the MUFE 24S).

I also asked for help with eyeshadow placement, and got some very helpful tips on where my crease is (for my eye shape, the crease for makeup placement is actually above the eyelid fold). More on that in another post!

Overall, I had a really great experience at the MUFE freestanding store in Los Angeles. They were happy to let me browse and play for as long as I wanted, and I loved the mini makeup lesson and learned a lot. If you live in LA or are planning a visit, I definitely recommend checking it out!

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MUFE Blush 75 Review, Swatches, Photos

I recently decided that I don’t have enough bright blushes, so I bought Make Up For Ever 75 along with Illamasqua Tweak (review coming soon). MUFE doesn’t distinguish between its blushes and it’s eyeshadow; it simply sells pans of powder color that are suitable for use as either. They’re larger than a typical eyeshadow, and smaller than a typical blush. 75 is a matte bright pink that I bought to use as blush, but it would also be a great eyeshadow for those who wear pink eyeshadow – it’s certainly pigmented enough!

The following swatch is actually not quite color accurate – 75 is even brighter in person, but I couldn’t get my camera to pick up the color!

As you can tell from the swatch, MUFE 75 is super pigmented. It has a nice texture – very blendable, though perhaps a touch stiff (as many mattes are). It stained my arm significantly.

Because 75 is SO bright and SO pigmented, it’s a bit challenging to wear as blush. I used a stipple brush to pick up the color, then a regular blush brush to blend it out. You could also use a regular blush brush to pick up the color carefully, tap off the excess, then apply.

When I looked at the photographs, I noticed that I hadn’t applied the blush evenly; one cheek is a little brighter than the other. That’s something to be careful of using such a bright and pigmented blush! But, I love the rosy flush it gives me.

MUFE 75 is available at Sephora.com

How do you feel about super-pigmented and super-bright blushes? Love them or hate them?