Tanseido strikes again – YSS 17, YWC 14, YSC 17

I hope I will be able to briefly show you these big little brushes without sounding too irrational. In a few words : are they essential ? no.  Are they lovable ? Absolutely 100%.

I felt like Alice in Wonderland unwrapping these beauties. They are huge, long and you will feel insanely small in proportion ! Specially when you spend a lot of time using tiny Koyudo or Kihitsu brushes and then you jump to these !

• The YSS 17 is a grey squirrel highlight brush, 6300 yen.
• The YWC 14 is a goat eyeshadow brush, 2940 yen.
• The YSC 17 is a grey squirrel cheek brush, 6300 yen.

I wanted to try different cheek brushes, soft and smaller than usual blush brushes, if possible a shape that I didn’t already had in my collection -which I admit is difficult to achieve at this point. I think I was never tempted by this kind of brushes in my earlier quests, maybe Hakuhodo have similar options, to be honest I don’t even know, I first started to build my collection with brushes that I needed the most. Today I look at different options that I am very curious to try.

I ordered them on their website, got them delivered to Tenso and the whole process took less than 1 week ! Impressive !

Here you can see a picture of the three together with some other brushes for size comparison :

I recently got the SS14 but I wanted one slightly bigger that covered more surface at the tips, this YSS 17 is approx twice the size therefore better for blush application.

The quality of the YSS 17 is outstanding, it’s not as firm as the SS14 but the hair is incredibly soft, soft like the Suqqu cheek brush actually. I have the impression that such soft hair is more difficult to bundle and will present small shape irregularities, you can see that the hair is not sharply bundled like the SS14 but I think it’s something that goes in line with the softness of the hair and not a default. Just my humble opinion.

Compared to the Suqqu cheek brush, it’s not the same shape so don’t expect the same behaviour, the shorter side is firm, the longer side is extremely flexible. If you push the hair from the longer side to the shorter side (the opposite you would do during application), then you get similar spring than with the Suqqu. It does blend better than the Suqqu since the shorter side will put more pressure when you need to and the longer side softly diffuses as you go.

Difficult to get a good clear picture, the surface is angled but flat :

The YWC 14 is meant to be an eyeshadow brush, they recommend it for beginners. It’s hard to believe that this brush can be used on the eyelids, it’s actually really big, very slightly rounded, it fits in my lid area but touches my eyebrows.  I don’t think I will be able to use it at all on the eyes, even for the blending but this brush is great value for money and I think you should absolutely get one if :

1. You want an extremely soft goat brush with flexibility but that can pack a good amount of product
2. You want a fantastic contour brush
3. You want a small brush for finishing (removing the excess powder)
4. You want a precise brush for setting your foundation  (or concealer) with powder

I can also apply my blush in swirling motions with this brush, absolutely no problem at all, it works with all types of products and even with less pigmented blushes.

Compared to the Hakuhodo J5521 the YWC 14 has the same softness, not as firm, not as dense, but the hair is exactly same length.

Compared to the Hakuhodo  J5533 the hair of the YWC 14 is softer but obviously it’s much bigger and more rounded.

I thought a picture near my face would help give you a better idea of its size.

The YSC 17 is actually one of my favorites brushes to apply blush, I will need a few more days to give my final judgement but I am *very* pleasantly surprised, I use it for blush application, to me it feels softer than the Suqqu Cheek brush. Even though it’s flexible and very soft it keeps its shape and you have enough surface at the tip of the brush to easily apply blush and blend, you can put pressure, it will place and buff the product very softly but efficiently. I love that I can apply blush in rounded (swirling) motions, the result is flawless and extremely natural.

The tip of the surface measures 2cm diameter, but if I use it in rounded motions it will cover the perfect size of my cheeks and I can take it slightly upwards to the cheekbone.

I assumed this would be a “luxurious” impulsive purchase and that they won’t be useful on a daily basis but I was wrong and that worries me quite a lot, for me it opens a door for even more unthinkable possible temptations…