Vincent Longo Large Eye Shadow Brush #22

I have mostly been talking about product themselves lately but today I want to turn the tables and talk about one of the brushes that works to make my makeup great.  After all, makeup only looks as good as the user can apply it and a good brush arsenal is the best way to get a flawless makeup appliction.  Most of you will remember that I tend to rave about NARS Eye Makeup Brushes and these are still my favorites on the market, you can get nothing better than a NARS eye makeup brush.  Today we are going to look a little-known jewel in my collection, the Vincent Longo Large Eye Shadow Brush #22, this is a huge eye shadow blending brush.  This one is even larger than the NARS #3 Eye Shadow Brush,  a Holy Grail of mine.

The Eye Shadow Brush #22 is best used for blending, this is just too large to deposit pigment and it will create a bit of a mess if you insisit on using it in this fashion.  "This eyeshadow brush should be used to apply your lightest shade of eyeshadow across your lid. Its large size and softness facilitates blending all shades of eyeshadow together at the end of your application for a seemless finish." 

Vincent Longo suggests that this brush can used to apply the highlighter shade of eye shadow or to apply your eye shadow if you like a sheer wash of color.  Maybe my eyes are much smaller than the ladies that this was designed for, but I find this brush to be too large to deposit pigment in any organized fashion.  "Dip the brush into the #1, Sun, or Sex shade of your trio shadow. Use small circular motions to apply the color over your lid from the lash line to the brow bone. When all eye color has been applied, gently sweep the brush over the whole lid to blend everything together."  Blending and bringing the look together is where this brush excels and I recommend that you use it in this fashion, one or two sweeps of it will quickly blend all your eye makeup and provide the perfect finishing touch for any eye look. 

How is this brush different from NARS #3 and do you need to own both?  No I don't believe that you MUST own both but it certainly would be helpful to own both sizes.  The NARS brush is slightly more all purpose, this brush is small enough to deposit highlighting shadow but is still a good enough size to blend all your eye makeup after application.  If you can only own one, then I still recommend that you buy the NARS brush, you will get more overall use from it.  The Longo brush is larger and fluffier and I cannot apply eye shadow with it, it works very well to blend but using it to apply pigment can create a huge mess on the eyelid.  This brush is a nice to own but you could get by without it...but I don't recommend it!

I ordered this brush from the Vincent Longo website when I wanted another eye shadow brush for blending.  I have been doing many bronze and gold eye looks and blending is very important to pull these eye makeup looks off.  Also, blending is really important when I try to mix rose and gold shades to create a rose gold gilded eye look, both of the Longo and NARS brushes will provide the result but the Longo brush provides a quicker blending experience and the overall effect is slightly softer.

photo courtesy of Vincent Longo