I love flat-top face brushes, especially those made of natural hair. I use them for many tasks from buffing and stippling foundation, applying color products to pushing powder onto the face. These uses mean a lot of contact with my skin, which means that a flat-top brush must be made of very soft hair (it also requires high density and firmness, of course, making the need of quality hair and softness even more acute). Morphé IB103 Flat Bronzer Brush from their Italian Badger series is not good enough.
Morphé IB103 Flat Bronzer Brush appears nice at first glance until you look closely at the hair. The Italian badger fibers are coarse, rough on the skin and somehow manage to apply products quite patchily. I know one shouldn't expect too much from a brush that retails just under $11, but still. The hair quality wouldn't suffice for a shaving brush, let alone one for makeup application.
As you can see, Morphé IB103 doesn't look too suspicious even among some really good flat-top brushes. I remember complaining a little about the Kevyn Aucoin Buff Powder, but it's world apart from this Morphe brush and still sees a lot of use. My favorite among these brushes is the gorgeous Hakuhodo G527M (also available in a regular black handle version) but I heeded the advice of Hakuhodo's people and never used it with cream or liquid products. It's simply the best powder brush I know. I also have several Stila 21 brushes in regular use with just about every kind of product. They've paid their keep ages ago. All of them are much more expensive than Morphe IB103, but it's the latter that isn't worth the price, not even with the IMATS discount I had.
Bottom Line: Skip.
Morphé IB103 Flat Bronzer Brush ($10.95) is available from morphebrushes.com.
Thanks for the review, Gaia. I will definitely pass!
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