Real Techniques Your Base/Flawless Core Collection Review

Makeup brushes are so important to your makeup routine and trust me, they make applying almost everything easy. Quality is important but can be expensive. 

Makeup artist and YouTube vlogger Samantha Chapman of Pixiwoo (with her MUA sister Nicola) has her own line of makeup brushes out called Real Techniques and they're both high quality and inexpensive. I picked up the Your Base/Flawless Core Collection recently. It's my second Real Techniques brush kit (you can see my review of the Your Eyes/Enhanced Starter Set brush kit here). A store called Designer Cosmetics Warehouse in the underground shopping area beneath Holt Renfrew Centre on Bloor Street in Toronto carries the Real Techniques brushes.

The Your Base/Flawless Core Collection set cost me $29.95 and comes with four brushes, designed for creating a perfect base (foundation, concealer, powder, blush, contour, highlight, etc). 

Real Techniques brush sets come in a case that can be used for storage and turned into a stand for display or easy access. Sam being a makeup artist herself knows exactly what works well for makeup application and I think this idea is genius. 

Case open

Case as a stand

Case closed

The brushes in the Your Base/Flawless Core Collection are a buffing brush, detailer brush, pointed foundation brush and contour brush. The Real Techniques brushes are made of Taklon, a synthetic fiber used in high quality art and make-up brushes, so they're cruelty-free. The handles are aluminum, so they're light and they're colour coded so you know that all the purple ones are the enhanced eyes brushes, all the gold ones are meant for achieving a flawless face and the pink one are for a perfect finish. Let's look at each one more closely. 


The Buffing Brush is the largest of the four and meant for full coverage application of powder and mineral makeup. It's gorgeously soft and easy to manipulate over the skin, resulting in as full or as soft a coverage as you're looking for. You could use this with blush, highligher and bronzer as well.

The Detailer Brush is for applying concealer with its tapered, fine tip and can also be used for lipstick. I find this is far easier to use than a lip brush for applying concealer to blemishes or small areas of skin since you can use just the tip or the broader area and it's excellent for blending. I've also used this to apply eyeshadow to my inner eye and to my brow bone and I've used it to smudge eyeliner.

The Pointed Foundation Brush is for use with liquid foundation to build coverage. I like to use this with my cream concealers, as it's so effective in building coverage. It works well with liquid products too - eyeshadow, highlighter, etc. The tapered, broad tip works for painting on product and for buffing and blending. 

The Contour Brush is for delicately applying highlighter to contour areas and also for super-soft focus buffing. I've used this for contouring under my cheekbones and along the jawline and sides of the face. It's so perfect for creating the contour line and then buffing it out to the perfect shadow. It's lovely for adding a touch of highlighter as well, and makes it so easy to control just how much you want. 

At the bottom of the page here you can see a video of Sam using the Core Collection brushes. 

I love these brushes so much. They're super-soft and so easy to use. They're well-priced (about $8 per brush) and good quality. They pick up product beautifully and buff gorgeously. 

If you're in the market for some new brushes, I can't recommend the Real Techniques line enough. Learn more about them here and check out Sam and Nicola's YouTube channel here. 

Grade: A

C.