Tanseido brushes – First order and first impressions

I was recently able to place an order with Tanseido, on their Japanese website then send it to a shipping company in Japan and have it forwarded to me. The parcel arrived today very early this morning , my eyes were just barely open that I could already hear the postman happily whistling behind my door … The order was  placed on the 21st of December, arrived at the shipping/forwarding company on the 27th and here at home on the 4th of January.

Since I did not know what to order I have just selected what I thought interesting for me and also for a little review, a few eyeshadow brushes and a few face brushes. Even though the details of the brushes are written on the website I really did not know what to expect, everything is written in Japanese and you have to be trained -or very motivated- to be able to place an order.  You can translate the site while you browse with Google Chrome browser, that’s what I use and it works just fine, not everything is translated but you can manage.

In case you are interested by a forwarding company, I tried Tenso  and it worked perfectly well, the shipping from Tanseido to Tenso was free (when you order for more than 10500 JPY) and then the Tenso shipping with the handling fees were 1990 JPY (approx 22$).

You can have your name engraved on the brushes but good luck with that if you don’t speak Japanese 😀
Nearly all of their brushes are available in 3 colors : black a red or a blue handle and sometimes you might be able to get different materials for the hair, they have a wide interesting range of brushes.

These are the brushes I ordered :

The eyeshadow brushes YWQ 10 and 12

• YWQ 10  2,310 yen (tax included)  Mine light crude (goat) Length: about 17.5cm hair length: 1.5cm approx
• YWQ 12  2,520 yen (tax included) Mine light crude (goat) Length: about 18cm hair length: 1.8cm approx

I am very impressed with these brushes, the head is made with very fine goat hair, they are of the best quality and they are perfectly shaped, absolutely no flaws whatsoever. Even the handle, the crimps around the ferrule are faultless, for me it’s the proof the quality is 100% highest grade.

On the pics, you can see the size comparison versus some other similar shaped brushes, the Tom Ford is just a size between the two Tanseidos, the Tanseidos are as soft as the TF if not even softer, both Tanseidos here have more flexibility on the bristles than the TF. The YWQ 10 is similar to the Hakuhodo J5523 in terms of size and softness but the YWQ 10 is just a bit thinner, 1mm at the base of the ferrule and 3mm at the middle of the head (both measured sideways).

Today I have tried the YWQ 10 for applying eyeshadow onto the lid but it’s too big so I placed the shadow and took it up to the crease and it was perfect for that,  for the lid only it’s just too big for me. For the base application, I have used the YWQ 12 and then I also used it for blending, you can feel the quality of the brushes when you are working with them, there is no doubt about that.

The highlighter brushes SS14 and YWH 12

• SS 14 –  4,725 yen (tax included) Grey squirrel,  hair length: 3cm
• YWH 12  – 2,520 yen (tax included) Mine light crude (goat) Eye Shadow, Brush Length: about 19cm hair length: 2.4cm approx

Although the YWH 12 is mentioned to be an eyeshadow brush, I don’t think I will be able to use it as an eyeshadow brush, to me the YWH is a nice option to wipe fallout away, to apply contour on small/medium zones like the temples, underneath the cheekbones, sides of the nose or to apply highlighter, it’s versatile, has a very unusual shape and feels incredibly soft, a great reason here for me to love it.

Looking for unusual shapes, I ordered the Piccasso 201-A with the idea of softly and sheerly applying highlight/contour but the result is actually not that sheer, the brush is dense, firm and a bit too short for that. Even though it’s red squirrel it’s not that soft and pleasant and if I press the brush against my skin it does slightly hurt, I will try the Piccasso brushes I just received during the weekend and then I will know a bit better if they are soft enough on my sensitive skin.

On the picture below, you can see a few other angled brushes, not very similar though. The Tanseido SS 14 is quite unique, again, absolutely flawless and divine. What I love the most about this brush is that it’s thick and densely packed, it’s also firm enough to deposit a nice quantity of product and blend it, this is one amazing contour, highlight and blush too ! It fits totally into the category must-have.

The white blush brush EQ 28

• EQ 28 – 9,765 yen Hosomitsu 峰 (goat), hair length : 4.5cm, base of ferrule : 2.5cm

Of course I had to choose one the most expensive brush with the best goat hair quality. It’s “Koyudo White Mushroom” soft, surreal for goat hair. This is how they could be ranked in terms of softness, first the Tanseido (or the Koyudo White Mushroom but it’s not pictured here), in second position the Tom Ford, the Koyudo and the Hakuhodo J531 together (these three are quite similar), and in third and last the Piccasso.

It’s a bit too big for precise blush application, I will use it tomorrow in daylight to see if the bronzer is applied evenly but I am sure it does, I just did not had time to play with them long enough but I wanted to share my first impressions already today 🙂

The Red Squirrel brush YAQ 17

• YAQ 17 6,930 yen (tax included) Red squirrel 3.5 cm hair length

I am impressed with this brush, I thought nothing could get as soft as the Koyudo but it’s possible. The Tanseido is not as densely bundled and is thinner and fluffier but it’s a also fantastic brush. I have used it with the Burberry Blossom blush, not overly pigmented and a medium shade for me, it worked very well and I can assert that I will dearly love these two brushes.

The three brushes pictured here are actually red squirrel, you can see that the Piccasso is much darker and has a few white hair bundled inside, it’s also a very soft brush but we are still a bit far from Tanseido and Koyudo. The hair color looks more like grey squirrel to me but it feels actually softer than grey squirrel.

This was one of these orders that you are sooo happy about, loving every single brush.

I had an email exchange with Tanseido before I ordered just to make sure they did not ship internationally, they confirmed they didn’t and then asked me about the market in Europe regarding Japanese brushes, I told them that there is a market, not sure how big, but I know that we would certainly be great customers 😀

Let me know if you tried them and if you have any brush to recommend and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate 🙂