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Friday, April 3, 2020

Koyudo Brushes Part XII

After declaring I'd skip the rest of the Koyudo Somell Garden Collection, I ended up going back for the Somell Garden Kinomi Series instead. While I wasn't too keen on the "fruity" dyed goat hair in the original Somell Garden brushes, I really liked the dark walnut handles in the Kinomi Series. After all, this walnut handle was the reason I picked up Somell Garden Lemon x Walnut Face Brush. In addition, I got a retractable lip brush from the M Portable Series, because it was about time I own one or two ^.^

Somell Garden (top) versus Somell Garden Kinomi (bottom).
Screencraps from CDJapan Instagram feed.

In this batch, from left to right: Somell Garden Kinomi Series Almond Powder, Macadamia Eyeshadow, and Pistachio Lip Liner/Concealer (I skipped the Hazel Foundation because it's polyester), and M Portable Series M015 Silver.

I wondered if the Somell Garden Kinomi Series was any popular with other fude lovers. The walnut handles were definitely a selling point for me. I didn't like that the Hazel Foundation Brush was polyester and hence skipped it, and I did wish that the Almond Powder had a denser packed brush head. However, both the Macadamia Eyeshadow and the Pistachio Lip Liner/Concealer were of excellent quality, and they were absolute steals at only 1,800yen a piece.

- Somell Garden Kinomi Almond Powder Goat, 4,000yen: for a powder brush, this was oddly sparse. As a result, it was too floppy to blend and worked better with sweeping and dusting motions. This meant less so blending sunscreen powders and more so dusting on translucent finishing powders, especially those that are finely pearlized. 

I had a hard time understanding why this Almond Powder was 4,000yen while the Flat Top Kabuki was only 4,100yen! Yes, the Flat Top had shorter hair, but it was also many times denser than this Almond Powder, not to mention the goat hair was undyed. May be it was the walnut handle that made this Almond Powder pricey?

- Somell Garden Kinomi Macadamia Eyeshadow Horse, 1,800yen: after washing this brush, I couldn't believe it was horse. It was so soft it might as well be goat. Being horse though, it did pick up lots of products, so I liked it for lay-down purposes, especially the super sheer lid washes.

Post-wash

- Somell Garden Kinomi Pistachio Lip Liner/Concealer Kolinsky, 1,800yen: look at the post-wash photos for this Pistachio Lip and the M015 below. This brush head didn't fray so much. The M015 did. I wondered why. This brush had less hair for sure, could that be it? Both were just as soft though.

Post-wash

- M015 M Portable Silver Kolinsky, 2,500yen: a nice and travel-friendly lip brush but I don't actually carry it in my purse, because I don't carry in my purse any lippie that requires a brush to apply. Kind of defeats the purpose of a portable lip brush, yes, but I'd rather not be messing with fussy lippies while out and about. I've been social-distancing and sheltering-in-place and haven't been out or about for a month now anyway ^.^"

Post-wash.

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