Domed buffing brush

A domed buffing brush is a kabuki’s head on a long handle: a tight bundle of short synthetic fibres, rounded at the top and about two and a half centimetres across, set in a round ferrule on a full-length stem. It is pressed against the skin and turned in small circles, so that foundation is polished in rather than painted on. The centre of the dome does most of the work, and its curved edge follows the side of the nose, the corner of the eye and the line of the jaw, which a flat head reaches only by tilting.

Its neighbours share its density but not its outline. The kabuki is squat, with a stubby handle, and made above all for powder. The flat-top buffing brush is cut straight across and gives the fullest coverage; the stippling brush’s longer outer fibres dot product on more sheerly; a paddle paints. The dome is the all-rounder of the four: dense enough for coverage, curved enough for the corners of the face, and at ease with liquid, cream or powder.

Density decides coverage. The more tightly the fibres are packed, the more foundation the head holds and the harder it presses it into the skin; a plusher, looser dome leaves a lighter veil and forgives a heavy hand. Then look at the outline. A true dome is symmetrical and works in any direction; many are cut on a slant or drawn out to a point, like MAC’s rounded slant, Laura Mercier’s domed teardrop and Anisa’s triangular dome, and these reach more easily around the nose and under the eyes. Size is speed: a large dome covers the cheeks and forehead in a few passes, a small one gives control.

Match the brush to the formula. A thin, fast-setting long-wear liquid wants a dome that moves quickly and is not too dense, so that the first area is blended before it sets; a thick cream or a stick wants a firmer, denser head that can push it into the skin; a skin tint or a BB cream suits a fluffier dome that spreads a little a long way.

Choose synthetic fibre for liquid and cream. It is not porous, so it holds foundation at its surface instead of drinking it, and it washes clean. And read the description rather than the name. Makers sell the shape as kabukis, buffers, blenders and plain foundation brushes: Sigma still calls its dome a Round Kabuki, and Pat McGrath calls hers kabuki-inspired. What matters is a dense, rounded head on a long handle.

Dot foundation on the forehead, cheeks and chin, or put a little on the back of your hand and touch the dome to it. Press the brush to the skin first, to set the colour down where it is needed, then buff outward in small, light circles, so that the edges of the face get least. Let the curve do the corners: roll the dome along the side of the nose and under the eyes instead of pushing harder. Build coverage in thin layers, rather than loading the brush once, and finish at the hairline and under the jaw with the brush almost empty, so that the foundation fades out instead of stopping at an edge.

If the finish looks streaky or heavy, the brush is overloaded: wipe it on a tissue and go over the area again with what remains. With powder foundation, swirl the dome in the lid, tap off the excess and buff in the same small circles. A dense head holds on to what it is given, so wash it after each use with liquid or cream, working the cleanser from the base of the fibres outward, and dry it lying flat so that water stays out of the ferrule.

To buff something is to polish it. Buff was first a thick, soft leather, originally of buffalo hide, known in English from the 1570s; the verb “to polish” is recorded from 1849, from rubbing with buff leather or with the buff-sticks and buff-wheels used on metal, and a buffer, “one who or that which polishes by buffing”, from 1854.^[1] The Getty’s art vocabulary still defines buffs as sticks or blocks with a soft, absorbent surface, used to apply polishing material.^[2]

At the dressing table, the word belonged to the nails. The V&A keeps an Edwardian nail buffer, made between 1900 and 1915 of bone and kid leather and small enough for a handbag, which the museum calls typical of the beauty accessories a woman might own,^[3] and a buffer of about 1950 by Asprey of London, in tortoiseshell and chamois, from a fitted manicure set.^[4] Both are soft pads on a handle, made to be worked over a surface until it shines.

Foundation came to be buffed much later, and with a brush. The kabuki page tells how loose mineral powder made the short, dense brush familiar; by 2006 Bare Escentuals had registered “Swirl, Tap, Buff” as a trademark for the way its foundation went on with a brush.^[5] The domed buffing brush takes that polishing motion onto a full-length handle, and the kabuki’s name sometimes travels with it.