Louise Young brushes and palette

I started to collect Louise Young brushes a long time ago, my boyfriend helped me and was ordering them for me as presents for my birthdays, I can show you the LY brushes I own today and compare them with other similar brushes that have now joined the group.

Louise Young brushes are easy to get online, I know that in London you can get them in Fenwick and maybe also in Harvey Nichols but I am not sure about that last one.

I thought it was just the perfect timing to also show you the palette. Yesterday I attended a nice little makeup training class in Geneva together with 5 utterly funny girls, the makeup artist created one look on each of us, we “just” had to do the other eye…

First the makeup artist asked us what kind of looks we loved to wear, I told her I loved neutral with a twist, a pop of color blended with a neutral look or a little daring accent but still appropriate for my age. Then she selected a brick red for me ! That’s really strange because I love that color but I never told her and she never saw me wearing it. The brick red she applied on my crease was perfect, luminous and flattering, I absolutely loved the look. I remembered having this Louise Young palette at home so I wanted to try it today. Unfortunately that didn’t went so well. The black was a nightmare to blend and the brick is nice but not luminous enough in my opinion, same for the cream shade. But let’s start with the Louise Young brushes and we will come back to this topic later on 🙂

The LY cosmetics

These are the ones I own today :

I think she only has one makeup palette but she has many other brushes that you can check out on her website.

Louise Young – LY07S Super Powder – Natural Hair

It’s HUGE, soft, dense and fluffy, if you are looking for this kind of big brushes, you cannot go wrong. I use it to apply bronzer but that will not give you a precise application so be aware. Here it is compared to the Tom Ford bronzer. The TF is softer but it’s also much more expensive.

Louise Young – LY20 Super Fan – Natural Hair

A gorgeous brush. It’s one of the most unique brushes, a huge and dense fan brush that I use to apply blush or highlight but I don’t reach for it very often, I wouldn’t say it’s scratchy, but now that I am used to work with Hakuhodo brushes, I feel that this one is not that soft anymore…

Louise Young – LY04 Maxi powder/blusher – Natural Hair

Today I neglect it because I found better alternatives but it’s a brush that I used to love and still use when I remember it… The RBR 003 is softer and more flat, the TF and Hakuhodo are more dense and way more softer. The good thing about this LY is that it’s multipurpose. Just big enough for bronzer, it delivers an even application and precise without being streaky, it also works very well for blush for me because I have big cheeks 🙂 but I don’t use it with highlighter.

Louise Young – LY34 Super Foundation – Synthetic

I loved it… but today I prefer to apply my foundation with the Rae Morris Radiance or the Koyudo FU-Pa 02.  I still use it for cream blush or cream bronzer. I find that it tends to absorb too much product inside the bristles, it would be more appropriate for more liquid type of foundations.

Louise Young – LY 47 Super Shadow – Natural Hair

It’s good to pack pigments on the lid, but I don’t use it because I prefer the Mac 239 for that purpose, also when I want a sheer wash all over the lid this is not the best option, since this is what I do on a daily basis I don’t reach for this brush anymore.

Louise Young – LY 13 – Mini socket – Natural Hair

It’s a very good brush to smudge a hard pencil eyeliner, but I find it too scratchy and I don’t like to use hard or scratchy brushes so close to my eyes. The N7 feels slightly better, the Chanel is very soft but I only use it to apply highlighter in the inner of the eyes.

Louise Young- Tapered Shadow brushes LY38, LY38a, LY38b – Natural Hair

These 3 brushes are very soft and very useful for detailed socket or eyeshadow application. The 3 have a similar hair length, the a and b are just slimmer versions of the LY38.

The Mac 226, at least the one I have (and I know it’s authentic), feels WAY more scratchier than the LY38 family. I use the LY for precise crease application and I blend with a bigger brush afterwards.

Louise Young – LY14 Socket brush – Natural Hair

I don’t use this brush anymore, compared to the Japanese alternatives, it doesn’t feel soft at all. The Suqqu and the Hakuhodo Kokutan are my go to for the socket. I just couldn’t apply the black eyeshadow on the socket and obtain an even application, I am sure it’s not only because of the eyeshadow, but that brush did not really help…

Louise Young – Essential eyeshadow palette

These are matte shadows, the finish is quite soft, not powdery and pigmented but the black one is terrible, difficult to swatch and so difficult to work with ! I had the worst time trying to blend it today. I made such a mess ! I removed the excess powder on my hand and I tried to apply it softly and blend it, the application was uneven and the blending took me forever, without even being able to do it properly at the end !

I love the brown ones not only for eyeshadow but also for the brows. They all have good lasting-power by the way.

The look

Here is the look I wanted to reproduce using only LY brushes and the similar LY shades as the ones used on my eyes yesterday, a cream, brick red and black eyeshadow, plus a black pencil eyeliner. I loved the look, it was more luminous and flattering than the one done by me today, well, it was also done by a professional … which I am not. Using ONLY the LY brushes did not help, the ones I have do not provide a good blending but anyway, here is the result.

This is the yesterday’s drawing that the makeup artist gave me and how she applied the eyeshadows :

The blending was such a pain ! the black shadow was a total muddy mess on my lids and of course not flattering for my aging eyelids. Anyway, I wanted to use only this palette and only the LY brushes. On the rest of my face I am wearing Suqqu foundation, the RMK blush mix for cheeks in Orange and the Lancome Rouge in Love in 106M.

Bottom line : I love the idea of the brick red in the crease, I wish the LY was more luminous, I will reproduce it but with other brushes and a different black eyeshadow and maybe I will call the makeup artist and buy the one she used for my look….

Now just for fun – I couldn’t help it – my boyfriend just told me today  “you still haven’t seen my brand new brush!!!! I have to check out your new brushes all the time and you don’t even care that I got the BEST BRUSH EVER for cleaning the car alloys ”

I asked him to show it to me and he raised this huge funny brush ! Since he is threatening to use my favorite makeup brushes to clean his hi-fi equipment, I threatened him to use his great new brush for my eyelashes 😛

I started messing around with his brush and preparing my revenge…

After a “mission impossible” blending… a mission impossible mascara…