What to Look For in a Liquid Foundation Brush

The soft brush bristles work to smooth makeup into skin for a natural-looking finish. It also helps with blending and building coverage.

Clean your brushes weekly with gentle cleaner and soap to keep them in top condition. Brushes with a lot of makeup are especially susceptible to bacteria, so this is important.

Handle

The handle is one of the most important parts of a foundation brush. It must be comfortable to hold and designed with a shape that is easy to grip. The handle should also be made from a durable material and finished with an antibacterial coating to prevent the growth of mold and mildew.

The bristles of a liquid foundation brush are either liquid foundation brush natural or synthetic. While natural hair brushes offer superior coverage and are great for applying powder products, synthetic bristles have come a long way and are now just as soft and effective. Both types of bristles are available in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Designed to blur and blend your favorite cream or liquid foundation for a flawless look, this brush is perfect for everyday use. The plastic handle has a unique curved design to easily fit in your hand and the densely packed bristles are easily cleaned with our brush cleansing gel. This brush is also animal cruelty free and made from recycled materials where possible. The unique bristle density helps to minimize makeup waste, ensuring you get the most out of your product.

Bristles

An excellent quality brush will feel soft and light in your hand, the bristles should transfer makeup smoothly with no or minimal fallout. The head of the brush should be shaped to help with blending, ensuring there are no harsh lines or marks. It should also be durable enough to last a long time if you take care of it.

The bristles should be made from natural hair or a synthetic material that closely matches the performance of uncut and handmade bristles. There are many different kinds of natural bristles to choose from including goat, squirrel, sable, and horse. Goat bristles are very soft and work well with liquid and cream foundations. They are also more resilient than other types of animal hairs and do not fray easily.

Squirrel hair offers a fine tip that can pick up more pigmented products and is a good choice for blush, highlight and eyeshadow brushes. They are softer than goat hair and more resilient than horse hair. They also have a little bit of elasticity, which is great for blending tasks.

Horse bristles are a little coarser than squirrel or sable, but they are very strong and durable. They are the most common choice for face, cheek, and eyeshadow brushes. They are more affordable than other animals and have a little less elasticity than fox, but still offer very soft tips for blending.

Coverage

For liquid foundations, look for a brush with a dense, flat shape that’ll help you blend and smooth a natural-looking, even finish, says Cynthia Di Meo, a global makeup stylist for Rare Beauty. Its bristles will «help control the amount setting powder brush of product you’re applying, and give you a more opaque finish» than a sponge, she adds. Use sweeping motions for a light coverage or stippling for a heavier one, she suggests.

For tinted moisturizers, BB creams, and CC creams, «a brush that’s soft and fluffy will help you sheerly apply the product and blend it in,» says a celebrity makeup artist who works with Hailey Baldwin and Kendall Jenner. That’s why she loves this double-duty brush from Nars, which has a plush concealer brush on one end and a fluffy foundation brush on the other, perfect for those light products.

The flat brush base also makes it easier to reach hard-to-blend areas, such as around the nose and corners of the mouth. The tapered brush head has extremely soft and dense fibers, so it’s great for precise applications in and around the face. You can also use it to apply blush and highlighter, or a creamy contour powder. It’s made with silky, cruelty-free taklon fibers, and is vegan and cruelty free.

Blending

If you’re looking for a foundation that blends well, consider choosing one with a flat-top brush. A flat-top brush has dense, rounded bristles and an angled surface that can easily reach the unique contours of your face—like the creases around your nose and eyes—and help you achieve full coverage.

A flat-top brush is also great for buffing in liquid and cream formulas. You can apply the product directly to your skin or onto a flat-top brush first, then use a circular buffing motion to spread it and blend it out.

We love this luxe brush from Hourglass because it’s designed with a small, tapered brush head that’s ideal for precise application of liquid foundation. It mimics fingertip application and allows you to work more precisely, particularly in hard-to-reach areas like the creases around your eyes or nose.

Another great option is this brush from Rare Beauty, which has short bristles that are perfect for blending and building up coverage. Rare Beauty global makeup stylist Cynthia Di Meo says that a foundation brush with shorter bristles gives you more control over the coverage because you can “buff it in, or do more stippling—and won’t soak up all your product like a sponge does.” This cruelty-free brush is crafted with premium taklon bristles that are silky-soft to the touch and offer a flawless, airbrushed finish when applying any kind of product.