When it comes to makeup, I’m what you would call a late bloomer. For years, my beauty routine only involved a swipe of blush, a dash of bronzer and sometimes – if I was feeling a little fierce – a bit of eyeliner. I’m pretty sure a five year old could apply makeup better than I could at that point.

And then I started watching YouTube tutorials, listening to beauty consultants at Sephora and paying closer attention to makeup artists whenever I got done up for photoshoots or events. Slowly, but surely, I started building an arsenal of beauty products together, made a complete and cohesive look.

First came liquid foundation (I’ve only tried two, but I really liked both Too Faced Born this Way and Cover FX Natural Finish). Then later on, I realized I needed to put moisturizer and primer on first so that my foundation looked smooth, instead of flaky (yes, I was working a little backwards here). And then I stepped up my eye makeup game with this eye shadow palette. And then came contouring, which I definitely have yet to master!

For a beauty beginner like me, I was already starting to feel overwhelmed with all of the products that I wanted to try and techniques that I’ve been dying to learn. It’s enough to make your head spin! And to top it all off, there was one more piece of the beauty routine puzzle that I needed to figure out: makeup brushes.

My original arsenal was pretty barebones: a round brush for bronzer, a fan-shaped brush for blush, a single eyeshadow brush and sometimes just my good ol’ fashioned hands. These were all things I collected over time after watching other people put makeup on me. Clearly a little scattered and definitely not complete.

After a plea for help, Sigma Beauty was kind enough to send me their Essential Kit, which literally is made up of more makeup brushes than I have ever owned in my entirely life. I’m still playing around with all of the brushes, understanding the use of each one and tinkering with techniques, but here is my beginner’s guide to makeup brushes and the tools that everyone should have in their beauty kit:

Foundation Brush (Sigma F60): Let’s start with the basics, shall we? I love that this brush is firm and slightly tapered. It works best with liquid or cream products like foundation or primer. It’s smaller than the brush I used to use for foundation, which makes it easy to cover every nook and cranny of my face.

Large Powder Brush (Sigma F30): A large powder brush will probably be one of the most used tools in your kit. The round, fluffy brush head is perfect for applying any sort of powder products evenly on your face. After my moisturizer, primer and foundation are on, I use this brush to apply setting powder.

Large Angled Contour Brush (Sigma F40): This angled brush is great for adding definition to your face. Just apply blush or bronzer to the hollows of your cheeks and then blend out to avoid harsh lines.

Concealer Brush (Sigma F70): This small, tapered brush is best used with cream or liquid products to conceal small blemishes. It’s also great for hard-to-reach places like the crevices around your nose and eyes.

Duo Fibre Brush (Sigma F50): I’m still playing around with this one, but it’s supposed to be a great stippling brush (look at me speak in beauty talk!). The brush is super light and airy, which helps blend powder or liquid products into an airbrushed finish.

Eyeshadow Brushes: My makeup brush kit just went from one eyeshadow brush to SEVEN, so I’m going to save my review on these guys until I have a better handle on my eye makeup situation. For now, just know that the Essential Kit comes with seven different brushes for your eyes: Medium Angled Shading (E70), Small Angle (E65), Large Shader (E60), Eye Shading (E55), Tapered Blending (E40), Pencil (E30) and Eye Liner (E05). I clearly have a lot to experiment with, so stay tuned!

So I want to know…. are you a makeup maven or a beauty beginner like me? What’s in your kit? Leave me a comment below – I would love your recommendations on new beauty products to try or requests for future beauty tutorials/stories!