Brush By Brand: Hakuhodo

Let's play a game. It's called 'pretend it hasn't been almost six months since I announced this Brushes by Brand series of posts'. Big fun to be had. Much fluffs. Pointy sticks.

Kicking things off, my collection of brushes from Hakuhodo, the most well-known and easily accessible (through their internationally-shipping English site) of the Kumano-based Japanese brush manufacturers. (Hakuho-do means House of the White Phoenix, btdubs, and an abstract phoenix logo appears on some of their brushes.)


In the past I've owned far more than eleven of their beauties, but my wardrobe has settled down into the current constellation of nine eye and two lip brushes. I don't have a curatorial bone in my body, so ditch the ones I don't use regularly without compunction*; the J5523 and J5522 featured in this recent post are out, as are, since my conversion to mostly non-powder blushes, all my Hakuhodo face brushes including a complete family of pointed yachiyos. Barring any major shifts in the formulas I own and looks I like to wear, I don't think I'll be making substantial changes to the current lineup for a while.

*I also back up my most-used tools without guilt and own two each of the Misako Portable Lip and K007 brushes and three of the G5512.




Left Column (round ferrules):
Short-handled 007 weasel hair fine script brush (same head as K007, $15)
G5515BkSL tiny horse hair pencil brush (here, $15)
G5514BkSL slightly less tiny horse hair pencil brush (here, $16)
J5529 small rounded goat-hair blender (here, $16)
G515 CM Angled Canada squirrel brush (here, $41)

Right Column (flat ferrules):
Short-handled 162 weasel hair angled brush (same head as B162BkSL at $20 or S162 at $36)
G521 - D1 tiny concave weasel hair push liner (here, $20)
G5512BkSL tiny horse hair push brush (here, $15)
G5513BkSL small horse hair paddle brush (here, $16)

Lip Brushes
Misako Portable Lip (vermillion handle) -- weasel hair, rounded (here, $36)
Retractable Push-Up Lip Flat (black handle) -- weasel hair, squared (same head as the silver, red or pink Push Up Lip Flat brushes at $27 each and Portable Kokutan Lip at $36)

I've featured both lip brushes before, so will be focusing mainly on the eye brushes today.


As you see, my Hakuhodo collection is dominated by very small brushes in firmer hair types (mostly weasel and horse) that allow my very inartistic hands to achieve some highly precise effects on my small eyes -- I find them especially helpful when experimenting with new Japanese magazine techniques involving ultrafine angles and neat nuances. With my dry, thin, physically sensitive skin, I try to entirely avoid corrective q-tips, makeup remover pads or foundation/concealer cleanup after eye makeup (y no real life command+Z option?), so really value the unparalleled level of control these tiny brushes offer in placing and pulling pigment.
For more detailed reviews of the precision instruments G5515, G5512 and G521-D1 in particular, click here. Meanwhile, this post gives an idea of the sizes of the K007 and S162 relative to some other brands' offerings.

Here are some more closeups to illustrate scale: my flat-ferrule Hakuhodo brushes with a MAC 231 on one side and a standard eyeliner pencil on the other (3CE #9 Wow Pink).

I tend to use the extremely fine, thin and small G521-D1 and G5512 to pick up pigment (from pencils, creams and even creamy powders) when I want a really fine line or if I want to do precise shaping. The S162 works brilliantly for a softer, smudgy application of powder, or to smoke out an already laid-down line in cream -- it's just slightly smaller than the MAC 231 in most directions but has a slightly fatter/fluffier head and a bit more 'give' from the weasel (vs. MAC synthetic) hairs; if you own the popular K005 this is similar but angled and with less rounded edges. The 5513, while not much larger than the MAC 231, is noticeably fluffier and plusher in cross-section and I mostly use it on its side or head-on to pat/press drier glitters onto my lid/lower lashline -- the shortness and density of the fine horse hairs prevent stray glitter from flying every which way while the brush's gentle taper ensures no harsh 'stopping' lines that need to be blended out (thus possibly risking more glitter fallout. ...I seem to have some kind of migrant glitter phobia.)


Another scale picture with the Hakuhodo pencil and script brushes, a Suqqu S brush (discontinued, sorry! I don't mean to show off D: I no longer own the MAC 219 but you can see how one that relates to both the Suqqu S and Hakuhodo G5515 here) and the 3CE eye pencil again (the size of yer average eyeliner pencil).

This lot is pretty intuitive: the three pencil brushes scale up in orderly fashion in all directions and dimensions, and the K007 script liner (click here for how it relates to some other similar fine pointy liners) emerges from an even tinier ferrule. The density and compact size of these Hakuhodo brushes grant an impressive degree of control -- all of these have held up with no splaying through many uses and washes -- and allow the use of softer-than-usual grades of pony in the pencil brushes. The G5514 is a more recent acquisition, thanks to a MUA buddy (hi, A!) but it's the scaled-up version of the G5515 (though still noticeably smaller than a MAC 219 or Laura Mercier Smoky Eyeliner Brush) and my rave review applies; its bigger-than-5515 size and consequently greater flexibility and fluffiness (though in the grand scheme of brushes it's definitely still in the precision instrument category) makes it ideal for the inner corner and inner socket accent work I've been doing so much lately, and it's also excellent for sketching out a soft cut crease or smudging a shader onto the lower lashline on smaller eyes (uses to which Lisa Eldridge usually puts the larger Suqqu S in her videos).


The G515 and J5529 are my biggest Hakuhodo eye brushes, though still moderately sized. They sit on either side of my pair of Paula Dorf brushes (the Sheer Crease and Eye Contour brushes), so I thought I'd show all four together:

Diffuse round-bellied blenders and angled brushes don't really photograph to advantage head-on, but here goes anyway:

The G515 is a larger but denser angled doefoot than the Paul Dorf Eye Contour, so it's paradoxically more precise and gives a more concentrated application of product despite its size. But its perfectly packed, ultra-fine and soft Canada squirrel hairs never create harsh edges -- I mostly use this to 'stamp' on colour on my outer v, or in-set powder wing (as in the last look here), and even used in such an atrociously unsophisticated manner (:P) it lays down pigment in a perfectly even, diffused-edged shape. The G515's excellence at diffusing without disturbing (clumping up, buffing off etc.) pigment also makes it not-too-shabby blender, in a pinch.

Meanwhile, the J5529 is a shrunken PD Sheer Crease but otherwise pretty much identical in shape, profile, density and hair type (soft goat). The Sheer Crease is one of my favourite blender brushes, so I'm very glad to have the 5529 for more targeted blending -- of accent colours placed partially through my socket, for example (first look here)  or when I want to soften just at the very edge joining two otherwise distinct colours without blurring them together (e.g. look two here).


Obviously, it's a highly idiosyncratic collection (missing many fan favourites and and largely absent in the feathery-soft squirrel department) and definitely not one I'd recommend as any kind of 'starter kit' for someone new to Hakuhodo or to makeup brushes, or frankly anyone with big eyes, a lot of lidspace and a limited lifespan... Also, my favoured laydown and blending brushes come from other brands :P But I hope this has been helpful to some of you, at least in deciding what you may safely skip from Hakuhodo's tempting range.