Comparing brushes

I recently bought a 217 blending brush by MAC after being told on Twitter how different it is to a 224. Now I own both, I can see a vast difference in both brushes so I thought I’d do a comparison.

First the 224

The bristles on this brush are long, soft and tapered. It does an excellent job of blending two colours, but is best used in blending the crease colour out to the brow bone.

The 217

The bristles are shorter and more densely packed which makes the brush much firmer. It has a far rounder tip than the 224. It’s best used in blending colours from lid to crease.

Comparisons

I used my 217 for applying and blending eye shadow. So how does it compare to a MAC 242(flat topped brush) with applying

The 242 is better used in applying a lot of colour to a small area, such as the lid but the 217 does a better job of applying to a much larger area, without losing the pigmentation of the colour.

I then used the 242 to apply a small amount of shadow and blended it out using the 217 & 224.

You can see the obvious difference in the way the two brushes blend, the 224 loses the colour more, which is why I find it better for blending edges, compared to the 217, which blends but also keeps the strength of the colour, without blending it away.

I hope that’s helped anyone who has been trying to decide between the two brushes, or needed help as I did, deciding whether one is different to the other. The answer is clearly yes, and I’m glad I got the 217

XOXO