Beauty Clinic: A wardrobe of make-up brushes?

Q. I’m looking for good, reasonably priced make up brushes and also a new dry skin body brush. Can you help? A. We certainly can suggest a couple of options, which we like ourselves and think will work well for you.

The wonderful global charity Look Good Feel Better (lgfb.co.uk), founded and run by the beauty industry to support women with the visible side effects of cancer treatment, brought out their own professional quality brush set a year or so ago, developed by beauty experts.

The Makeover Brush Set contains a powder brush, finishing brush (which you can also use for applying foundation), tapered blending brush (for soft eye shadow shading) and detail brush (great for pinpoint application of concealer), all in a protective travel pouch.

The cruelty-free synthetic brushes are made of talkon bristles, a special polyester derivative, so they are allergy free and suitable for sensitive skin. The set retails at £24.99, currently £21.99 on amazon.co.uk.

For a body brush, we have just been trialling Karmameju Recharge Ionic Body Brush, which is made of horsehair bristle from horses’ mane (so not suitable for vegans or vegetarians) and extra-fine copper alloy.

Ionic is one of those words that’s a bit tricky to really understand but Karmameju claims that brushing with this forms negative ions on the skin, which accelerate the transport of oxygen to the cells and body tissue, and stimulate the lymph nodes’ ability to detoxify the blood (but arguably any body brush would do this).

Whatever the scientific whys and wherefores, it is a really good brush, not too hard but not wussy either. A bit of an investment at £31.17 at amazon.co.uk, but we do think it’s worth it. And dry skin body brushing is amazing, both in terms of getting your circulation in top gear for the day and helping to ward off cellulite.