The Air-Brush

Wayne Goss The Air-Brush ($35.00) is a powder brush designed for sculpting, buffing, and baking. It is made out of blue squirrel hair, which are some of the softest natural hairs I've come across. It is a flatter, tapered cheek and face brush that's small-to-medium in size; it's not so small that it is only useful for precision work, as it can easily be used to apply products like blush and bronzer, but it is smaller than the average blush brush (though I find it more in line with the size of more Japanese-branded cheek brushes, like Chikuhodo Cheek/Highlighter and SUQQU Cheek). It's 22mm in width, 35mm in length, and 14mm in thickness with a total length of 7.75 inches / 17 centimeters.

The brush felt silky-smooth against the skin; I couldn't feel the individual bristles moving across the skin at all. It had moderate density and a fair amount of flexibility, so it can absolutely be used to buff in a powder product or to lightly sweep it on, which made it a more versatile brush overall. Personally, I liked it best for applying cheek products like highlighters, blushes, and bronzers, or else lightly patting loose setting powder under the eye (the softer hairs help minimize disturbing any concealer underneath the eye); it is a smaller version of Hakuhodo G5545, which is a brush I use regularly for applying cheek colors as it lays down color well as well as blends out powders nicely. The way the bristles taper really helps to diffuse color more gradually across the skin, giving a more blended result without a lot of effort. It can be used to contour as the narrower edge can be held underneath the cheek bone, and then the tapered edge can be used to blend out the contour. I still find an angled contour brush (which is more traditional) is more suitable for me to get a more gradual contour that really sits well underneath my cheek bone.

I haven't had mine for long, since it just released, but I haven't had any issues with my other Wayne Goss brushes with respect to things one would determine with prolonged use, like abnormal shedding, ferrule loosening, and so forth. Based on past performance and the fact that this is limited edition, I am comfortable giving this review sooner rather than later!

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