Real Techniques Powder Brush - Review

I was on a mass cleaning frenzy of washing my makeup brushes the other day when it dawned on me that I have never reviewed any of my Real Techniques brushes except for a foundation one and that was years back and couple with another brush. I own a number of Real Techniques brushes. Close to the whole set except for the newish metal and chrome ones. Ulta always has a good sale on them BOGO half price sales so when I am in the U.S., I tend to grab a number of them. Before I get into the nitty gritty of the review, I will say that I find a lot of Real Techniques brushes perform not in the way that other brushes do. Some of them fill a gap where no one else has a brush like it on the market and are super useful or they just don't do what I want them to do. Overall, I like their brushes. They are good spares to have kicking around the place, but they are not my favourites. They do have one or two though that there is no substitute for and I carry them with me when I travel. One nice thing about their brushes is that they are very affordable and many come in convenient travel sets.

Today, I am going to talk about the Powder Brush. The pictures of it in my blog here show it clean and reshaped back to its original shape. I picked this one because I actually don't like it, it was on my mind and bugging me. Hence the inspiration for this review. I would have to say out of the entire Real Techniques collection, this is their worst brush in my opinion. So that means all of my other brush reviews for them will be on the upswing! Part of me hates myself for picking a brush that I really don't like as my first full fledged Real Techniques review. I am not doing Real Techniques justice here because they really do make some good brushes that I will get to in the coming weeks and months. I also have to say that I love Sam and Nic of Pixiwoo no matter what I say about the brushes. Enough blabbing.

So the Powder Brush is about $10 U.S. or $13 Canadian. I have seen them in Wal-Mart in Canada. I have purchased all of mine in Ulta in the States and made good on their BOGO sales as I mentioned earlier. The head of this brush is huge when you start using it. It seems to get bigger and bigger as time goes on. I find the hair on it a bit coarse for my liking. I like a super soft brush for powder application. The head is so big that when you get powder on it, the powder seems to get sucked into deep space nine and hardly any powder transfers to your face. I also have a hard time getting this brush into a compact to pick up powder because it's too big. I feel like the powder goes everywhere but on my face! The bristles easily go 100 different ways too after a couple of uses and becomes quite unattractive and enlarges like you wouldn't believe.

The above picture is the side view.

To summarize, the brush is too damn big, awkward to use, powder doesn't transfer easily onto the face, a big mess results and the bristles are uncomfortable on my face. So it's not a brush for me. On a positive note, the price is right if you can get it to work for you. The handle is comfortable to hold and it will stand up alone on your dresser if you like. If you are clumsy like me, it won't stand up for very long because it is easy to knock over. The base is so big that the brush takes up a lot of room in your brush cup too!

I've had the brush for nearly 3 years and have used it whenever I am in rush (which is a lot) and it has not fallen apart in any way aside from the fact that it doesn't keep it's shape when you use it, but that happened from Day 1. The brush does wash very well and easily. It is easy to reshape the brush back to its original shape. I have now packed away this brush in a drawer as I have decided I really don't want to see it again. You know its time to do that when the sight of something irks you each and every time.

Packaging: 6.5/10

Easy to Work With: 1/10
Longevity: 10/10
Easy to Clean: 10/10
Usefulness: 1/10 
Texture/Softness: 1/10
Price: 10/10
Travel Worthy: 3/10  (way too big)
Overall Rating: 3.5/10
Would I buy this again? NOOOOOOO