Real Techniques Ultimate Base Set

After using the Core Collection and the Starter Set from Real Techniques for quite a sometime now, I felt the urge to try out something else, too. I heard everyone raving about the expert face brush and that the miracle complexion sponge is the closest ‘dupe’ of the Beauty Blender (which I do not own, but always wanted to try), so they were already on my wish list, when I saw the Ultimate Base Set at the website of Douglas. The set contains next to the items listed above, an exclusive brush called deluxe concealer brush, which resembles the deluxe crease brush from the Starter Set, and a travel case with a delightful addition of a mirror. The set costs ~€35, but being a Douglas Card owner finally paid off, and I got a coupon stating that I can buy the set for ~€20 plus I could use up a -10% coupon and at the end I paid a little over €17. Considering the expert face brush costs ~€10 on its own and the sponge ~€6, I think I got quite a good deal. But was it worth it? Let me share my thoughts of each item.

Expert Face Brush

I love my buffing brush from the Core Collection, which is a quite flat, dense brush which I use to buff in foundation (or more often BB cream) with circular moves. The Core Collection being my first set of face brushes, earlier I used my fingers, but I already got use to the buffing brush, I find the application very convenient and easy. Maybe that was the reason why I had problems with the expert face brush first. This brush is more densly packed with sorter bristles, and the top cross-section of the head is not round, but rather oval shaped, and slightly tapered. This form makes the application very precise (you can reach places like the side of your nose, inner corner of the eye easily), and you can use it with concealer as well. You can achieve medium-high coverage because of the density. The quality – like of any other R.T. products – is high, the bristles are soft. The brush is excellent for its price (~€10), and as I know, one of a kind (I would be interested in finding a good dupe, and compare, just for fun. J). Because of the unique head, it is suitable for multitasking, too – to buff in foundation and concealer, and maybe to cream contour, but I have only used it with liquids and creams till this point, and I cannot tell whether it works with powder or not. Bottom line is, if you prefer medium-high coverage liquid or cream-like foundations, this could be a good, affordable pick for you, which offers multitasking, as well.

Note: When I use it with my new favourite foundation, the Catrice HD Liquid Coverage, the result is very streaky, it soaks up a lot of product and it is impossible to blend it nicely (even though the foundation is very watery and easy to blend with any other method..). Just when I started to like it.. I still recommend the buffing brush from Real Techniques.

Miracle Complexion Sponge

Well... To be completely honest, I love me a sheer coverage, and I do not own any high coverage foundation, and using a sponge naturally sheers out products (because you use it wet and the sponge always sucks in a bit foundation), so when I used it to apply my BB cream or sheer foundation, I basically got nothing on my face, and it was even slightly patchy. It took relatively long as well, compared to my buffing brush. BUT I see how it could work very well with a good medium-high coverage foundation, when you just would like to sheer it out, so I do not hold this against the product. Because of my preferences, I found another task for the sponge – I set my under eye area (and sometimes my whole face) with it. I take my pressed powder, pat the flat side of the sponge into it, and then onto my face, and it feels and looks very soft afterwards. I usually use the pointed end for my under eye. Huge imaginary high-five for Real Techniques because of the cutting. ;) I have never used a Beauty Blender before, only a different sponge (which was really hard and it did not let any water in – awful), but my experience with the Miracle Complexion Sponge is very good, It gets considerably bigger when wet, and it feels really squishy as well. For this price, it is a big win, and I recommend it if you would like to try the Beauty Blender, but do not want to spend ~€20 for a sponge.

Deluxe Concealer Brush – exclusive for this set

This was a disappointment for me. And not because the brush is bad, because it is not, it is fine, but I prefer another shape for my concealer, and I know, that many would love this shape. But... it is far from exclusive. If you have ever seen the Starter Set (which contains 5 brushes for the eye), the brush can be familiar for you. There is a brush in this set called ‘deluxe crease brush’, and not just the names are similar. These two brushes are the same, just one of them is purple, and the new one is orange. That is the only difference. So if you have the mentioned set, the odds are high that you have already tried the deluxe crease brush as a concealer brush, and if you liked it, you do not need this set at all, because…

Travel Case with mirror

…these case is not so good either. I was looking forward to this one, because the concept can come in handy, but the implementation failed in my eyes. The case has lower quality than the cases in the older sets, and the mirror is blurred and do not provide quite a ‘real’ reflection. It is like the mirrors in clothes shops, where they cheat that you can look better in your dress, but in reality it is not flattering at all. So if you were about to buy this set because of the case, don’t do it in my opinion, because it does not worth it.

Fazit

I am glad I got a discount, because for the price of the individually available expert face brush and sponge I got the two other items to play with, and I would be disappointed if I paid the original price, €35 for it.