Spectrum brushes review

Good makeup brushes are an important part of any makeup look. But how do you find the right ones? I tried the Spectrum Brushes Malachite and Spectrum Disney X Tinker Bell brush set to help you out and determine: are Spectrum brushes worth the money?

Spectrum brushes are not super cheap, but they also aren’t super expensive. the Malachite brush set retails for €70. The Tinker Bell set costs €45. Since you get multiple brushes in each set, it may be a good deal, but if you don’t use many of these on the daily it can be more expensive in comparison to getting a few brushes you actually love and use.

Spectrum Collections Malachite 10 piece brush set

The Malachite set had been on my wishlist for a while. It contains 10 brushes: 5 face brushes and 5 eye brushes. I felt it would make for a good array to try out the brand.

Spectrum brushes are vegan, made with synthetic fibres and should be very easy to work with. They all come in fun colors too so they will stand out on your vanity.

The face brushes from the Malachite set are as follows:

A01 – Domed Powder
B01 – Buffing Foundation
A05 – Angled Cheek
B08 – Magic Wand
A29 – Mini Paddle

Of the face brushes the B01 Buffing Foundation is my favorite brush. It is great for applying cream bronzer or blush. It makes for great buffing and blending at the same time.

The other brushes did not make it into my daily makeup routine. The powder brush was a bit too flimsy for my taste. The Angled Cheek works quite well but again I felt it was better for creams than for powders.

The Mini Paddle is nice and technically listed as an eyeshadow brush, but it is far too big for my eye shape to work there. So I actually used it as a highlighter brush. The B08 is actually a decent concealer brush or can be used to apply under eye powder.

The eye brushes are as follows:

B06 – Tall Tapered Blender
A12 – Precision Pencil
A16 – Precision Crease
A24 – Double-ended Brow Style
A28 – Flat Fluffy Shader

My favorite eyeshaodow brush here is the A12 Precision Pencil. Because of this brush I have rediscovered my love for extending my inner corner highlight. It fits right in the hollow of my eye.

The other brushes also didn’t make it into my daily makeup routine. The Tapered Blender was too fluffy to really do much and too big for targeted blending. The Precision crease was rather small to do anything truly impactful, but it could be good for more detailed work.

Finally the Brow Style brush was nice but it had too much give to create precise brow strokes. The Flat Fluffy Shader is good, but it was rather big for my lid as well.

Spectrum Collections Tinker Bell 6 Piece Little Things Brush Set

The second set I decided to try was the Tinker Bell set. This set has much smaller brushes in and is more of a travel brush set in my book. I thought it would make for a good variety to see how these would work.

These are the brushes included in the set:

• A32 – Precision Cheek
• B06 – Tall Tapered Blender
• A36 – Brow Duo
• A28 – Flat Fluffy Shader
• A35 – Paddle Complexion
• A04 – Tapered Finisher

As you can see there are three brushes that overlap with the first set, but these are much smaller than the first ones. New to the set are the Paddle Complexion, Tapered Finisher and Precision Cheek.

In terms of size, these brushes worked much better for me. But I felt all six of these had too much give to the bristles for them to really do much.

Will this make for a great travel brush set? Yes, but none of these ended up in my daily makeup routine.

In this set I felt the face brushes outperformed the eye brushes as they made for some good application. They had the right shapes to fit my face contours and made it easy to use.

The eye brushes here are mini versions of the larger ones and I felt the cut on the wasn’t the cleanest making them less precise to work with.

Should you buy the Spectrum brush sets?

While I like the idea of these brush sets, I don’t find them worth the money. The brand does sell single brushes but most of their brushes come in sets, which means that if you’re like me, you’ll be paying for things you won’t use.

Some of the brushes have a standout quality and I feel they offer something unique that I didn’t have in my collection before. However most of these brushes I feel are not great. They are flimsy, the cut of the bristles isn’t precise enough and the shapes aren’t always right for my face and eye shape.

If you are someone building up your brush collection though, these may be great to get started. They are vegan, will work just fine if you need many brushes in one go, and there’s a good enough range in the sets.

However, if you want to spend a bit more, then I would suggest Zoeva as a great beginner makeup brush brand. They do many more single brushes, allowing you to customize your set and the ones I have from the brand feel like better made brushes.

What are your favorite brushes?