Well, my name is Nmachi. I’m a graduate student who is crazy about makeup but cannot afford to buy many. My latest buy was a $2 drugstore blush that I thought would work for me in the store only to come home and find that it blended completely into my skin! Needless to say, I was very disappointed.

I would like to win the makeup brushes because:

1) I have a lot of acne and hyperpigmentation scars and I use makeup to cover most of them but my makeup sometimes comes out shabby because I use my fingers to apply them and I think I aggravate my acne scars in the process:(.

2) If I tried to buy the brushes on my own it would take me YEARS to get a complete set. YEARS! Right now I just have foundation and blush brushes…and that’s after planning for about a year to get those! The funny thing is when I finally have the money to buy a brush I go for a cheap brand and I regret it immediately I get home. I would like a nice, quality set that will last me a very long time.

3) I would like to be able to use my interest in makeup to earn extra money on the side by hopefully working as a freelance makeup artist sometime in the near future. I already help out my friends with makeup now and I can only imagine what I’ll be able to do with a nice kit. At least I’ll be able to advertise my own face everyday!

4) It would make a really nice birthday and Christmas present for me .

Wanted to keep it short but I really want the brushes…Sorry…

Shanghai in the first blush of its “huang feng”: the hot, oppressive and strangely lovely crush of August. There’s a girl digging through a suitcase on the fourth floor of an apartment in the eastern part of the city, where the dark labyrinth corridors of old Shanghai compounds twist around the guts of tarnished new millennium buildings. She’s got black hair,
dark eyes, and is clearly Asian in descent.

Any native resident could tell you she’s a visitor. Maybe it’s the bold, piercing way she meets your eyes–here is a girl with no fear. Grandmothers warm their grandsons against tiger women, and her deceptive low-hipped prowl is decidedly feline. Maybe it’s the hair–good Chinese girls don’t crop their hair shorter than a boy’s, all messy spikes and careless swirls.

Maybe it’s the impeccably applied emerald green eyeshadow.

She’s frowning, her full mouth (NARS Gipsy, blotted twice) twisting. Someone, probably airport security from Logan, has unended her carefully arranged suitcase. Neat as a well-constructed bento box when she left Boston early Tuesday, her clothes are now twisted around, toiletries pawed through.

It’s violating. And her fat little brush case is gone.

She’s barely twenty, and it’s taken two years to build up a respectable collection of good brushes. Independent and fiercely unwilling to spend the money of her hard-working parents, she’s researched all the brushes for the best quality/price ratio. All of them have been paid for out of her own pocket.

There were humble little workhorse brushes from the drugstore, a pampered expensive kabuki brush, an obscenely soft powder brush that she had saved up for three months for. There was a bright little pair of newly sharped tweezers, a cantankerous old eyelash curler that she was inordinately attached to.

All gone.

[Close to black.]

You don’t realize how attached you get to your makeup brushes. I’m still at the stage where I could be ready to leave with one suitcase, leaving behind the stages of my life like shed chrysalises. But I need my toiletries for the regularity, the preparation that enable me to face the morning.

With my brushes and my pigments and my paints I can be a kohl-eyed modern-day Mata Hari. I can announce my exceptional character with a slash of red lipstick, “no” scrawled on my cheekbone with liquid liner. I can draw on my stripes with black shadow, give myself tiger eyes with amber shimmer.

Without them, the tools of my trade of transformation, I’m only a lonely, tired girl, slumped over a scarred and rifled suitcase, half a world away from home and as vulnerable as I never allow myself to be.

Since then I have gone on to purchase quite a lot of makeup mainly eyeshadows. I am fascinated with the different looks possible with the same three colours. I also bought quite a few blushes and this is for a girl who just used to put on a bit of powder. The change a bit of makeup can have on your appearance and self-esteem is amazing.

I am currently using body shop brushes and although they do the job, they dont the the best job. However, they are all I can afford right now. Having the Billy B brushes would be a dream come true and will take my makeup application to the next level.

It’s because of this reason that I depend on sites and blogs such as yours and many more like yours to give me guidance on beauty news, beauty products, and how to use those products as both a makeup lover and as a woman of color. I frequent these sites and blogs and I have such passion for all things beauty that I hope to pursue a career in cosmetology or as journalist for a women’s magazine such as Allure or Lucky. I also take much inspiration from these websites for ideas on makeup looks.

I believe Billy B’s makeup brushes will allow me to expand on my makeup skills, as much of the way I learned and the way I am learning is by myself with the direction from websites. Many times I struggle with contouring cheeks and eye looks that need to be blended since most of the time I use my fingertips to apply eye-makeup and my blush brushes are a little cheap and don’t distribute color in concentration enough to do contours. I hope these makeup brushes can help me perfect the looks I admire and create more looks of my own. Plus, these makeup brushes are so beautiful and versatile, yet basic and easy to use; I especially love brushes eight, nine, ten and thirteen. Who knew a brush could apply mascara to your bottom lashes? Overall, I hope these brushes will help me expand on my passion for makeup, not to mention it would make the best birthday gift. Thank you for your time.

I hope you choose me!
Amber