Best Things in Beauty : Stila #21 Powder Foundation Brush.

the #21 Powder Foundation Brush is one of the most popular brushes in Stila's range and also runs under the name Double Duty Cheek Contour and Blush Brush. it has got fabulous reviews all over the beauty-net and i was very interested for a long time. when i saw it at hqhair.com i had to buy it, i paid about 23£ during a promotion but it's normally 29£. after ordering, i still had to wait a long time since it was on backorder.
it's a round flat top brush made of goat hair. i've heard great things about it as a brush to apply liquid and cream foundation, i love the idea of using a natural hair brush for foundation application, but haven't found a good one yet. the shape is nice to use as a mineral foundation brush as well or to apply cream blush (but i find it too big for this purpose).

the handle and ferrule are very sturdy and of excellent quality, such as the brush hairs. it's truly very soft, as soft as goat hair can get and the brush only contains of hair with natural grown, uncut endings. this brush feels just as soft as my flat top brush by Hakuhodo, maybe even a smidgen softer. it feels amazing against my skin, even in stipling or swirling motions. it has a perfect density-to-hair-length-ratio, is not too firm so it wouldn't tug and drag the skin (like the Sigma F80), not too loose/long/fluffy so it buffs in your product perfectly and the surface area has an ideal size.
all this makes this brush theoretically an overall love, but sadly i can't use it the way i want for now.

it bleeds a lot of dye while washing and sheds when i use it with liquid foundation :( for this reason i don't use it with foundation yet, but i hope that this gets better with time, so i regularly wash it with my other brushes even if it wasn't in charge.
when i used it, i found that it worked greatly. didn't absorb too much foundation and created a flawless, airbrush-like finish quickly and effortlessly. however it was really unnerving to have to pick up all the hairs on my face afterwards even though it wasn't as many as with the MAC 109, for example.
well, this one is too good to give up on it. do you have any experience with the long-term use of this brush? i really want it to work for me.

check out The Non-Blonde's great review on this brush, also!