You know how every product review of mine comes with a story? This one is not exceptional either. It has a bitter and sweet story behind it. Which explains why I took so long to get into these Breena Beauty B212 Basic Eyeshadow Brush and B216 Brow Definer Brush.

When Sabrina from Breena Beauty emailed me on the delivery of these brushes, I was excited and eager to try the new brushes. I think no girl will have enough of makeup brushes. For me I can never have enough of eye makeup brushes as I used a few at one go to complete a look. When the email arrived, I was having lunch with the soulmate #doublehappiness. I do not get to see this soulmate of mine often due to his busy work schedule. That day was rather special. He planned and took time off work to see me before his two weeks oversea trip the next following Monday. It was stressful to plan as it was my birthday the next week and he was so busy before the trip with all the preparation for the big team meeting oversea. For him to take time off is like almost impossible and this homegirl (me) was getting paranoid that I will not get to see him before he flew off. But of course in between a few hours we have to look for a quiet place for him to take his oversea concall. That’s our life. No complain about that. If you saw a guy with a laptop and earpiece on talking to the air and a girl busy spreading kaya and butter on a steam bread, that’s us 🙂
The rest of the story I believe you already know. We broke up on my birthday. Nonetheless I was not in the mood for anything and Breena Beauty parcel arrived around the same time. The parcel has been sitting on my table for weeks. I finally have the guts to open it to try last week. For some reason these brushes reminds me of the soulmate. Probably because the email from Breena Beauty arrived while I was having my last lunch with the soulmate.

Well, enough of my soppy love story. Let’s get back to the origin of today’s review. Breena Beauty B212 Basic Eyeshadow Brush and B216 Brow Definer Brush first impression. Yes. I have decided to try and write a first impression review upon using these two brushes for the first time.

What I understand from Breena Beauty’s update was initially there are supposed to be three eye makeup brushes instead of two. One got delayed due to production issue therefore Breena Beauty launched two eye makeup brushes first namely B212 Basic Eyeshadow Brush and B216 Brow Definer Brush. The initial box packaging remains except that the boxes now are labeled with the name of the brushes on the side. Nice touch!

The core brush identity from their first brush, Face Luxe Brush such as the white handle, rose gold ferrule, engraved gold Breena and brush name, and cruelty-free synthetic hair are all transplanted to these two new brushes as well. I love white and rose gold so this is like brushes right down my alley 😀

Let’s take a closer look at the brush head size for both brushes. B212 Basic Eyeshadow Brush is a shader brush, not too flat nor too fluffy with the perfect size to fit our Asian eye lid size. B216 Brow Definer Brush on the other hand is an angled flat brush but this one right here is slightly thicker and longer than others as it was meant to be a brow brush.

Truth is, I don’t use shader brush a lot. My brushes has always been all rounded and fluffy. In another word, I’m more of a blender brush girl. However, after trying one shader brush from Smashbox recently, I suddenly feel that I need to have more shader brush in my collection. Honestly I have no idea how to use them previously but now I do. It works so well in packing eyeshadow on the mobile lid compared to blender brush. Now I feel silly haha!!

I was a bit scared using B212 Basic Eyeshadow Brush for the first time. I do not know what to expect and I do not have much experience with using shader brush like this. When I first laid the brush on eyeshadow palette, I was amazed with how well the brush picks up the product. Some brush bristles just don’t grip eyeshadow. This one is amazing. Then, when I first laid the brush onto my lid, I was blown away. Application was hella smooth and the eyeshadow simply transferred itself from the brush to my lid. The size of the brush head is a plus point for me. I have a small lid area to work with so usually after I had my transition shade on my ‘imaginary’ crease, I have a tight space to work on from the fake crease to the lash line. B212 Basic Eyeshadow Brush does the job for me 😀

I also have the habit of sweeping a brown shade on the entire of my lower lash line. I know what you are thinking. It is going to be too big for the lower lash line right? That is what I thought as well. The thing is, most YouTuber used a huge brush like this to apply eyeshadow on their lower lash line. I have always been using a small shader brush for the job. I decided to try with this B212 brush. As the brush is bigger, thus it is fluffier (for the lower lash line) and it is also the flare bristles of the brush that helped to smudge out the eyeshadow at the same time. I actually spend lesser time applying and blending eyeshadow on my lower lash line with this brush. Phew!

B216 Brow Definer Brush is an eyebrow brush. This brush is meant to fill in the brows using a brown eyeshadow or a brow pomade, which has been the trend recently. I do that once in a while but I draw my brows better with a pencil. When I first saw this brush, I thought it is too thick and long to be used as an eyeliner brush. One day, I decided to just go ahead and use it as eyeliner brush. Instead of going in with a gel eyeliner or an eyeshadow, I used cream eyeshadow. Wow. Just wow. It turns out the thickness of the brush is PERFECT. I lined the entire lash line in a single swipe! The brush picks up product so good that I do not need to double dip my brush into the product. The nerve wrecking part is the wing. I am not good with drawing a wing with a brush and I’m able to do that again and again with this brush. What I like about this brush is what seems to be an oval with pointed ends brush shape. The tip is thinner which is able to give a pointy wing. The bristles are firm but flexible at the same time. Some angled brush are just stiff all the way which makes winging the eyeliner a tough job to do.

Alright girls. I hate myself now for posting this review up so late as I missed out telling you about the free shipping promotion in conjunction with the launch of these brushes 🙁 . But then again shipping was not expensive and you can always combine orders with your friends 😛

I highly HIGHLY recommend both Breena Beauty B212 Basic Eyeshadow Brush and B216 Brow Definer Brush. Not because I was sent these brushes (I was sent these with no review obligations by the way) but because I have used them so much till today and I spot cleaning them for next day use so much so that I am scared that I will spoil the brushes. I am crossing my fingers that the next brush would be a blending brush *cross fingers*

Disclaimer: Product was sent to me for review consideration. This doesn’t affect my judgement in the review in any way.