Borderline Roses & Winstonia Brushes Review

Hello all!  Yes, I'm popping out posts like a crazy lady here (but I'm not crazy, trust me), and first of all, I'm excited to announce that I've recently partnered with Winstonia to do product reviews!! :D I think that's exciting news.  You should be excited too.  Now keep in mind that these product reviews will have my most honest opinion on said products, and these products were sent to me for free, and I'm NOT getting paid for my opinions.  No money was exchanged between my hands and theirs.

The product I'll be reviewing today is a set of 4 nail art brushes.  Here is a link to the brushes, and this is what they look like:

This set of brushes comes with three striper brushes (each is a different length - short, medium, and long), and a square brush.  I used all four brushes to create this awesome manicure:

Read on to find out more about these brushes, and about this manicure! :)

So first, let's talk about the brushes.  This is only my second set of nail art brushes that I've ever owned, and I can say that they're a lot more comfortable to use than my other brushes.  The main reason for that is because these brushes get wider at the base, so they're easier to hold, and they feel a lot more sturdy.  My other brushes are skinny, so I feel like if I hold them too hard, they'll break (which is something I have yet to test).  So when I used these brushes, I felt more confident in my grip and handling of the brush, so that led to me feeling better about creating this manicure.

The striper brushes were all approximately the same width, even though they were different lengths.  I don't see how the different lengths will necessarily help me in my nail art, but that might be different for some of you.  The striper brushes are pretty thin - however, if you want thinner brushes, you can always trim these ones.  I don't think it's necessary though.  The square brush was used for clean up around my nails, and it did a pretty swell job.  Plus, the brush hairs are super soft, so it felt really nice around my nails :)

Each brush came with its own plastic protector sleeve.  I decided to keep mine to reuse, as I'm going to be moving around a lot, and I don't want to bend the brushes as I'm packing them and moving to new places.  The brushes all felt a little bit stiff at first, so I softened them by bending the hairs a little before I started working.  Don't bend the striper brushes too much though because the hairs are all supposed to come to a point at the tip, and you don't really want to break that point.

After I finished my manicure, I cleaned the brushes by first dipping them in pure acetone to remove all traces of nail polish, and then running it under tap water for a few seconds.  After I dried the brushes, I put their sleeves back on and laid them flat.  What struck me the most during this part was that even though the square brush had orange hairs, none of the coloring fell off when I cleaned it with acetone.  I've had that problem with my other set of brushes.  It's not a big problem, but it's just a little bit annoying.  So there's that.

However, these brushes cost around $6 for 4 brushes.  I don't think they're really worth that much...granted, I know these brushes will last me for a lifetime, so it's actually a pretty good deal, but you're paying for essentially two different types of brushes - striper brushes and a square brush.  Unless you're really sensitive to the different lengths of the striper brushes, it's not necessary to include three striper brushes of different lengths.  If you're going to purchase these, I would wait til there's a sale, or even go on Amazon to purchase them (a link to their Amazon listing can be found here).  That said, these are still better quality and are more durable than the set of 15 nail art brushes that cost around $3 total...but the latter set has a lot of brushes, whereas this Winstonia set really tackles the more essential nail art brushes.

And now for the manicure!

For this manicure:

I used Double Duty Strengthening Base & Top Coat by Sally Hansen as my base coat.  On my thumb, ring, and pinky fingers, I applied two coats of Frankly, I Don't Give A-dam by Sephora by OPI.  I outlined the nails using Golden-I by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear using the medium length Winstonia striper brush.  For my other two fingers, I applied two coats of Hidden Treasure by Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure.  The roses were done using Saaya by Julep and Laree by Julep, and the details were done using the short length Winstonia striper brush.  The leaves were painted with In the Lime Light by China Glaze using the long length Winstonia striper brush.  I cleaned up around my nails using pure acetone and the Winstonia square brush before finishing with a coat of Double Duty Strengthening Base & Top Coat by Sally Hansen.

Approximate Completion Time: 1 hour

The Julep polishes are really pretty!  I'll have a swatch post of them soon because gosh darn they're so pretty and we all want eye candy so heck yes I will provide you with eye candy :)

Thanks for reading my post today!  If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please let me know by leaving a comment on this post or messaging me directly.  But other than that, I hope you all have a wonderful day! :D