Makeup brushes & other goodies from Sephora

NOTE: Since I'm talking about Sephora, I want to make sure you know that they have extra premium samples right now, if you're a Beauty Insider, with a $25 purchase: two minis with the code HOTBI or, if you're a VIB (regular or Rouge), use HOTVIB and you get three. (All it says on the website is "limited time" so I'm not sure how long these will be good.) (And no disclosures required here. I'm just a Sephora junkie like everybody else.)

I got this stuff in the mail from Sephora (plus some little sample packets not pictured here):

The Bb Curl is a "premium sample" - the ones you get with a $25 purchase. The other two are the $25 purchase, between them - a Nars concealer in a travel size and a small makeup brush - the Classic Mini Multitasker. As one does (or well, as *I* regularly do, anyway), I ordered all this and promptly forgot about it. When it showed up I had to piece together exactly what I was thinking when I placed the order. I wanted to try the concealer and the Bb curl creme, that was the easy part - what I wasn't sure about is precisely why I wanted this brush. I think I read something about it somewhere - I'm not sure I know where. But anyway, it's a good brush for powder and that's what I needed. I'll show you why below. Basically I had two powder items I use regularly and only one brush I really like.

I cut off the side of the pressed powder in the picture because of the mirror reflection, but you get the idea - plain old Clinique pressed powder, which I basically only use in my t-zone where I tend to get shiny. And then my recently-acquired MAC blush. The brushes pictured here are my selection of larger-size brushes. Before I got the new blush, I was still using the brush that came with my Benefit box-o-blush (even after I retired the box itself), but it was getting kind of ragged. Basically what I've found with these large brushes is that I don't really love the ones where the brushes are very loose, as a lot of large brushes are. The new one is next to the blusher - it's a small handle and the bristles are soft but packed together, which seems to be more what I like. The one next to that is an e.l.f. angled blush brush, which is the one I already had that I liked best. (It's also the cheapest, I think, so I possibly should have just bought another one, but it's a little late now for that thought.)

Including the new brush, three of the brushes pictured here are Sephora brushes - the other two are the bright-pink Kabuki-style one at the top, and the one at the far right, which is big and very loose. The remaining one, the metallic-looking one, is Mally, and is also sort of that same looser style. It came with a Mally set which also included powder foundation, but I have not developed too much of a liking for the foundation yet. (It's the powder, not the brand. I have no problem with the product itself. I've always used liquid foundations and I can't seem to change that preference.) Anyway, I do like the new one - and the short handle means it's nice for travel/purse use. Now I've been going back and forth deciding which one (of the two I like best) I'm going to use for which item. Clearly I need to pair them off rather than switching back and forth, but I'm not quite there yet.

(And, um, thanks to the lure of extra premium samples - although you'd think Play! would have cured me of that a little after eight months - I may or may not have another order on the way, depending on whether what I ordered is actually in stock at the moment, which is unclear. I'll report back on that, of course.)

Update: I was poking around and I found a video (which I haven't watched yet, because I'm at work) that compares the Sephora #45 - the full-size version of the one I bought - to some of the e.l.f brushes. That's here. The number on the small version is 45.5. I haven't yet come across the page that I was reading in the first place but if I find it I'll add that also. A-ha! I think it was Nouveau Cheap.