If you’ve ever witnessed a professional makeup artist unpack their arsenal of brushes, it can be seriously intimidating. What are all those different makeup brushes for, and what makeup brushes are used for what? To help demystify the dizzying array of makeup brushes on the market, we’ve put together a makeup brushes guide with everything you need to know. Here are the makeup brushes and uses that we’ll break down for you:

• For all over: foundation brush, concealer brush, powder brush, kabuki brush
• For cheeks: blush brush, contour brush, fan brush
• For eyes: eyeshadow brush, eyeliner brush, brow and lash brush
• For lips: lip brush

11 Essential Makeup Brushes and Their Uses

Foundation Brush

First up in our makeup brushes guide is a basic foundation brush, which you’ll want to invest in to expertly apply liquid foundation. The best options have a medium-sized, densely bristled head that smoothly blends on foundation for a natural-looking finish.

Try the IMAGE Skincare BEAUTY Flawless Foundation Brush, which has an angled brush head designed to hug the contours of your face. If a sponge is more your style, you can check out the Sigma Beauty 3DHD Blender, which lets you stipple and blend either cream or liquid foundation with ease.

Concealer Brush

A concealer brush has a small brush head with densely packed bristles to smoothly and precisely apply cream or liquid concealer under your eyes, onto blemishes and anywhere else you’d like to camouflage redness or discoloration.

Try the Youngblood Luxe Precision Concealer Brush. This hand-made, artist-quality brush features an angled tip of synthetic fibers that’s just right for applying concealer everywhere from the inner corners under your eyes to the creases around your nose.

Powder Brush

A powder brush has a large, dome-shaped head of fluffy bristles to softly distribute powder across your face. When loading powder onto your brush, you’ll want to hold it perpendicular to your powder compact—as opposed to on an angle—to evenly coat the bristle ends before gently dusting it all over your face.

Try Koh Gen Do Powder Brush, which has supersoft synthetic bristles that work well with either loose or pressed face powder.

Blush Brush

A blush brush is smaller in size than a powder brush but also has fluffy bristles and a round head. You can use it to apply powder blush to the apples of your cheeks, and it can also work well for dusting on bronzer as well.

Try the RMS Beauty Skin2Skin Blush Brush, which boasts two kinds of bristles for an expert application of blush. Supersoft white bristles dust on just the right amount of product while a layer of denser bristles below help blend to create a natural look.

Contour Brush

If you’re into contouring, you’ll want to have this brush in your makeup kit. Most contouring brushes feature a slanted brush shape and dense bristles to sweep bronzing powder in just the right spots along your jawline and cheekbones.

Try the Sigma Beauty F40 Large Angled Contour Brush, which features antimicrobial bristles made from synthetic fibers and a handle made from responsibly sourced wood (pictured above). You can pair it with the Sigma Beauty F05 Small Contour Brush to buff and blend your powder contour for the perfect finish.

Eyeshadow Brush

For professional-level application, you’ll want to upgrade from those teeny-tiny travel brushes that come included in eyeshadow palettes. Eyeshadow brushes come in an array of shapes and sizes, from rounded to angled. A round, oval-shaped brush works well for sweeping shadow across your lid, but you’ll want to use a tapered brush to apply shadow to the crease.

Try the Osmosis Colour Oval Shadow Brush to apply highlighter to your brow bone or sweep color across your eyelids (pictured above). For a smoky eye look or brushing shadow into the crease of your eyelid, the Osmosis Color Contour Shadow Brush has a pointed brush head for precise application.

Eyeliner Brush

If you’d like to try the sleek, long-wearing look of gel eyeliner, you’ll need an eyeliner brush, which has a long, thin handle and an even thinner brush tip. All you have to do is open up your eyeliner pot, load some color onto your brush and exhale as you line your eyelid to help keep a steady hand.

Try the Antonym Eyeliner Brush #14, which features synthetic bristles that are laser-cut to create a superfine tip.

Brow and Lash Brush

One all-star brush to have in your makeup arsenal is brow and lash brush. This type of brush has a spoolie tip that’s perfect for separating eyelashes after applying mascara or combing up your brows for maximum definition.

Try the Sigma Beauty E80 Brow and Lash Brush, which has antimicrobial synthetic bristles to tame flyaway brows and comb through eyelashes.

Lip Brush

For a precisely defined lip, using a lip brush to apply color from a tube or palette can make all the difference. The best lip brushes have a densely packed head of bristles with a tapered end to closely and cleanly apply lipstick to your Cupid’s bow and the corners of your lips.

Try the SENNA Retractable Lip 42 Pro Makeup Brush, which is especially convenient for travel thanks to its retractable brush head.

Fan Brush

If you’ve already collected the basic brushes mentioned above, adding a fan brush to your makeup toolkit is a fun and useful addition. Fan brushes come in a variety of sizes and have a flat, wedge-shaped head of soft bristles well-suited to applying shimmery highlighter, bronzer and blush.

Try the Glo Skin Beauty Fan Highlighter Brush to sweep on pearlescent powder or glow-inducing bronzer to your cheekbones. A small fan brush, such as the Sigma Beauty E04 Lash Fan Brush, can also be useful for applying loose glitter to eyelashes or brushing away fallen eyeshadow particles from under your eyes after application.

Kabuki Brush

A kabuki brush has a wide, shallow head of densely packed bristles ideal for dusting loose powders or cream-to-powder foundation formulas onto the face. Kabuki brushes tend to be denser and less fluffy than traditional powder brushes. They also often have a short base to hold onto instead of a long, thin handle.

Try the jane iredale Rose Gold Kabuki Brush, which has a rounded head of bristles and a beautiful rose gold base.

Now that you know what makeup brushes are for what, read up on how to properly clean your makeup brushes.