Have You Seen bareMinerals’ crazy new brush?

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BAREMINERALS Bareskin Perfecting Face Brush ($28)Skipping over the controversy that bareMinerals has launched a liquid foundation for a moment (?!), take a look at this interesting new brush.

This bareMinerals bareSkin Perfecting Face Brush has taken the flat top kabuki brush and given the center-most part of the brush a step down, or what it’s marketing as a “unique fluid reservoir.”

QVC, which is the only retailer currently selling the brush — but only packaged with the new liquid foundation for $43.96 — has this marketing pitch for the brush: “The new Perfecting Face Brush has a specially engineered reservoir that holds the fluid formula, while the longer, surrounding bristles smooth out the finish upon application.”

Sephora says it will have the brush “available for purchase on May 1” at $28 a pop.

We agree, in theory, that this brush is an innovation. One of the issues with the flat-top kabuki brush is that it performs like a chisel-top Sharpie. There’s no softness, or naturalness, in the finish, even with all the buffing. This lighter perimeter of taller hair does seem like it would help to solve that problem.

We would love to tell you what the hair fiber is, but none of the marketing materials seems to say. But our money is on goat, which is what most of bareMinerals brushes are usually made of.

Anyway, this patent-pending brush looks pretty interesting, and we’ll be trying it out soon.

Be True To Your Brand

But now, onto that question of bareMinerals launching a liquid foundation.

It’s a move that doesn’t seem completely true to its powder-mineral-brand, which is why they are apparently launching the bareSkin brand. So now, we have the “Bare Escentuals bareMinerals bareSkin” foundation, just to keep things simple.

This brand maneuver is *not* lost on regular consumers, one of whom writes on QVC’s comments: “Liquid Foundation … REALLY??? I don’t understand why Bare Escentuals would EVER make a liquid foundation. They revolutionized the industry with their wonderful mineral makeup. WHY are they going back to Square One with liquid?? Duh!!

On QVC, the Bare Escentuals rep says the company didn’t want to do a liquid foundation until it could do something exceptional, and it’s calling this a serum-based foundation, which sounds, um, sort of like a BB or CC cream the way they describe it, with skin benefits and SPF. But anyway … women seem to like it so far. It’s getting okay reviews, a little over three stars in QVC’s five-star system, with 860 reviews, which is a lot of reviews obvs.

It’s worth noting that Bare Escentuals, which is the seller of bareMinerals, bareSkin, etc., hasn’t exactly been a consistent winner for its parent company, Shiseido Co. That Japanese cosmetics giant bought Bare Escentuals for $1.7 billion in 2010, and blamed a forecasted “huge net loss” for 2014 on a one-time charge of $287 million related to Bare Escentuals, as well as weak sales at the US unit.

According to the Wall Street Journal: “Analysts have said it is clear that the two companies can’t work together successfully.”

Makes you wonder which side wanted the liquid foundation – and came up with this clever new brush?

Our just-for-fun guess: The innovative brush idea came from the US, and the liquid foundation came from Japan. Actually, we’re hoping that this new bareSkin Serum Foundation is really just one of those superior BB or CC creams from Japan that we’ve always read about, just repackaged as a liquid foundation for the US.

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2 comments on Have You Seen bareMinerals’ crazy new brush?

  1. mandy
    May 4, 2014 at 11:54 am (10 years ago)

    I’m really anxious to try this new liquid of bareminerals, however I’m not sure I want to invest another $28 into yet another brush. I have over 60 different brushes, most of them still brand new & unused, I just had to have them, based on the products I purchased and the clever marketing/advertising used in saying that the product is best when applied with ‘this’ brush, lol. I’m wondering what if any comparable brushes there are, if anything I suppose I could always use a makeup wedge or blender if need be. Any ideas?

    Reply
    • SarahAWebster
      May 6, 2014 at 7:12 am (10 years ago)

      Hi Mandy! It looks like almost any flat-top kabuki brush or standard foundation brush would work, even though their new brush might be a true innovation. (Jury is still out on that one!) You probably already have a brush that would work, given that you have 60! Based on the way they described the serum foundation, I’m not sure I’d use a sponge with it – then again, we’re not that big on sponges here at brush central! You could probably get a sample or test the product out at a bareMinerals store near you. Thanks for reading My Brush Betty! #welovemakeupbrushes

      Reply

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