I'm aware that there are not many reviews online of the GLOSS Professional brushes, so I thought I'd be one of the fewer firsts to review them!
In case you don't know, GLOSS is an Australian store which stocks both accessories and cosmetics. I'll link their website here.
After a while, the company decided to come out with their own make-up brushes line, known purely as 'GLOSS Professional Brushes' which are also priced similarly to BYS (a brand which they also stock) brushes.
Out of their collecton of 24 brushes, I own four of their brushes:
- Eye pencil blending brush
- Eyebrow/eyelash brush
- Synthetic foundation brush
- Powder brush
I also owned the Fibre-optic angular blush brush, but I couldn't find it for this review! I'm pretty sure I've lost somewhere while I moved houses :(
Powder brush ($19.95) - made of goat hair
I've used this brush for over a year now and I remember when I received this brush, the bristles are amazingly soft! However, after a year of usage, I do notice that the bristles became a tad worn out, but definitely still usable.
I can't tell you exactly if the colours of the bristles around the edge has faded to a white/greyish colour or not, because I don't remember if it was like that when I received it.
The black ferrule is actually very stable and I never had a problem with it falling off or whatsoever.
As for the bleeding and shredding of the brush, I've never had problems with it when I gave it its first wash. I do recommend this brush if you can't afford any higher-end brushes yet!
You can see that it's a very dense brush :)
Synthetic Foundation brush ($12.95) - made of nylon hair
This foundation brush is one of my absolute favourite! The handle is shorter than the size of an average foundation brush (similar to a travel-sized brush), but I really don't mind that.
The bristles are soft, quite flexible and shaped in a way which makes it very easy for me to get around to the smaller areas such as around my nose and inner corner of my eyes (because I do have shadows around the inner corner of my eyes :S).
The bristles are still as soft and flexible after one year of usage, so that's a thumbs up for me. I also DO recommend this brush if you are in look for an affordable and great quality.
Fibre-optic Angular Blush brush ($16.95) - made from BJF & nylon hair
Please note that I don't have this brush anymore, so I cannot show you pictures of it and can only detail my experience.
This brush had to be my least favourite brush out of all. I was pretty excited for their fibre-optic brushes, but unfortunately, I don't like this brush at all. The way it's packaged caused the brush to become very flat which is ehhh..?
Adding to the flatness, the brush is not dense at all, therefore I found that it distributed my blush quite unevenly and becomes quite hard to use. I don't like this brush, therefore I don't recommend it. Just stick to your regular blusher brushes.
Eye Pencil Blending brush ($6.95) - made of nylon hair
This brush stands out much in my collection of GLOSS brushes as it's just of pure white bristles (can be stained very easily) and square-headed.
The only times I would use this brush is to fill in my brows, because it's just the perfect width for the thickness of my brows (yikes! I hope that made sense!). I would also use this brush to smudge out my eyeliner for a smokey look and pack on eyeshadow(s) if I ever needed.
I personally feel that this is not a 'must-have' in my collection, but I do believe it could become useful at times. For this brush, it's really up to you.
Eyebrow/Mascara brush ($6.95) - made from pig hair
Ahh.. what can I say?
To me, all eyebrow and mascara brushes are the same! I can say that the only times I would use these brushes are to brush/blend my eyebrows. I personally don't use the eyelash side, because I strongly believe that separated eyelashes depends on your choice of mascara wands and not to mention, I think the eyelash comb actually clumps my eyelashes even more!
That's the end of my review for GLOSS Professional Brushes, but not yet the end of this post.
I'll also ramble a bit about the BYS vs GLOSS brushes, just in case you wanted to know which brand is better since GLOSS stores also stocks BYS cosmetics.
BYS vs GLOSS
In the past, I HAVE tried BYS brushes which includes their Synthetic Foundation brush and Blusher brush. Please keep in mind that this is a ramble of my past experience with BYS brushes, therefore I do not have any pictures comparison.
For the Synthetic Foundation brushes, the GLOSS brush wins by far. The bristles of the BYS synthetic foundation brush [which I've previously owned] was a tad pokey and would always clump together when I smack it into liquid foundation. It was not a very dense brush either and the ferrule would fall off after a few months, so I really don't recommend it.
Next up is the Blusher brush that I've purchased from them. I don't own a GLOSS Blusher brush, but I can tell you that like their foundation brush, I found the bristles of the brush very pokey. I can't remember much about the shape, but you shouldn't care for it as you can't do much with an extremely amazing shaped brush with the pokiest bristles. Hah!
I DO prefer GLOSS' brushes over BYS brushes and I know you will too. The BYS brushes are quite overpriced for their quality in my opinion.
I hope you found this review helpful and if you have any questions, please tweet me (@the_beautifool) or leave me a comment below!
Disclaimer: I won these brushes from a giveaway hosted by GLOSS Parramatta in 2010. This is NOT a sponsored post and the review is based on my honest opinions, comments and experiences. As for the BYS brushes, those I have purchased with my own money.
