I am always on the lookout for good makeup brushes that don’t cost an arm and a leg. Luckily these days affordable makeup brushes are not hard to come by and some are definitely better than others.

A little backstory, quite a few years ago when I was a broke art student with a growing love of makeup, my mom told me about this new brand called Elf that had makeup for only 1-3 dollars a piece. We were super excited and so we ordered ALL. THE. THINGS. Unfortunately 99% of those things were completely terrible to the point of being unusable. Womp womp. So when Elf continued to grow as a brand and they began selling it at Target, I never really gave it more than a passing glance because fool me once, ya know what I mean?

I must have been feeling frisky a few months ago though, because I grabbed two Elf brushes while I was at target and decided to give them a go. I must have been sucked in by the undeniably good price…damn you bargain prices!

Well, guess what! The brushes are actually really good and I use both of them on pretty much a daily basis. Who knew? Certainly not me.

They call this brush their bronzing brush, but I don’t like it when people tell me what to do so I use it to apply my highlight and it has quickly taken over as my favorite highlight brush. It’s a perfect size and density for applying that fleeky shine to the tops of my cheekbones and my cupids bow and all that.

The flawless concealer brush is also in the daily rotation now too. I blend out the majority of my under eye concealer with a damp beauty blender, but this size and shape is perfect for blending it into the lower lash line and buffing it out without ruining my eye makeup. That’s too delicate a dance to be doing with a sponge. I used to do that step with my real techniques domed shadow brush, but this one is just slightly bigger and gets the job done a little more easily. And now I have an extra domed shadow brush for blending. Love Love Love.

I have also cleaned them and shampooed them more than once and neither of them has started to shed or anything, which is good news. So if you are on the hunt for seriously affordable makeup brushes, don’t hesitate to give Elf a try. I mean I don’t know if they’re all this good or if I just chose well, but they are definitely worth a shot.