Having heard the Zoeva brand flung about here and there, my interest piqued when it came to finding cheaper product alternatives (but where the quality was not compromised) for my kit. Unfortunately money doesn’t grow on trees and I have a limit imposed on my credit card (sad but necessary!). Brushes are one of the things that I really resent spending money on. Fair enough you get what you pay for in terms of Mac brushes but at £20 plus a pop makes my eye water every time I hand my credit card over to the cashier. I usually wait till I’m going away via Heathrow or ask my dutiful boyfriend when he travels for work to pick up a few Mac products to soften the blow on my bank balance. I think the last time I made a few Mac purchases, it worked out that it was around 16% cheaper in duty free. If you’re buying a few products, you end up saving quite a fair bit (money that can go towards your next makeup purchase).
I have bought most of the Real Techniques brushes and they are brilliant but they don’t offer a huge range and it’s annoying that with some of the brushes e.g. the Buffing brush, can only be bought as a set of four as part the Core Collection, of which two of them were rendered useless before I even made the purchase and promptly tossed aside.
I think because the Zoeva brand is not as accessible as Mac and Real Techniques that I had not bothered with them before but after seeing the lovely Tanya Burr use them in one time to many tutorials (see her latest here) and Lily Pebbles raving how great the quality was (check out here review here), I decided it was high time I track down these brushes and give them a go. And boy, I was not disappointed.
In a collective haul (I was so impressed with the first lot of brushes I had ordered that I decided to order a few more), I picked up the following:
102 Silk Finish Brush €10.50
I needed a buffing brush for liquid foundation and this one can be used with liquids and mineral. It is very similar to the Real Techniques Buffing Brush
103 Defined Buffer Brush €10.50
Not content with one, I also got this for foundation application. This one has an angled head and fits into the contours of your face.
127 Luxe Sheer Cheek Brush €11.50
I bought this one for myself as I thought it would be great for contouring your cheekbones (or lack of in my case) as it has an angled head.
105 Luxe Highlight Brush €11.50
Another purchase for myself and one enabled by Tanya Burr. In her recent tutorials, she used this to contour specifically and it fitted perfectly into the hollows of her cheek. Although it is a good size to also do what it’s actually designed for and thats for highlighting.
227 Soft Definer Brush €6.20
This one looked the closest to the cult brush that is the Mac 217. And you know what? It’s a pretty damn good dupe. I bought two as you can never have enough blending brushes.
230 Pencil Brush €6.20
I found that I needed another pencil brush as my current Mac 219 is constantly being used to blend out eyeshadow along my bottom lash line, smudging out eye liner and creating the outer V and so subsequently it’s always contaminated with dark eyeshadow. I needed one to use specifically to add highlight in my inner corner/tear duct and obviously for that it’s always a much lighter shade.
231 Petite Crease Brush €6.20
This was a purchase enabled by Lily Pebbles as she convinced me that this was actually better than the Mac 219 for blending out eyeshadow along the bottom lashline.
234 Smoky Shader €6.20
This looked the closest to the Mac 239 which I think is great for packing on colour on the lids.
I also wanted to try their neutral eyeshadow offering so I picked up their Nude Palette( €18.50). It contains 28 shadows, a mix of pearly nudes to various tones of matte brown, with a couple of plummy- purple tones thrown in and an ever essential black albeit with a touch of fine red glitter. Now these are no match for Mac and I find that you have to pick up a lot more product to get real colour payoff but for the price you’re paying, I think you get a decent product.
I also picked up two of their Eyeliner pencils (€5.20) as I’ve been kind of stepping away from the norm recently and opting for dark colours as an alternatives to black. The shades I picked up were Mr Marvelous, which is described as a “black base with purple fine glitter”, although I think it’s more of an indigo blue (and yes the glitter is very fine, not chunky) and great for us brown eyed girls, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Bride which is described as a “dark brown infused with pink and red glitter” and would suit all eye colours. This shade is great for evenings out just to add something a little more different, but still very glam, to the eyes. The texture is very creamy and application is silky smooth. They sure give Urban Decay 24/7 Glide on Eye Pencils a run for their money.
I have to say I am pretty impressed with the products I’ve picked up from my collective haul and it’s just a shame I didn’t come across the brand sooner. I would definitely recommend that if you haven’t tried any of Zoeva’s products, that you should get onto their website pronto and check out their range, especially their brushes as I do think you are getting value for money, neither quality or aesthetics are compromised here. If you have brought products from them before I’d be interested to know what your thoughts are and if you too would recommend them.
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