Cheapest retractable travel watercolour brush set!

SET OF 5 RETRACTABLE TRAVEL WATERCOLOUR BRUSHES FOR £3.43?! Crazy! But… they aren’t actually watercolour brushes! Read on to find out more…

The picture above shows my entire collection of travel watercolour brushes – the retractable type. Three are from art shops here in the UK:

PRO ARTE RETRACTABLE ROUND #10 £12.95 lawrence.co.uk
RED SABLE TRAVEL BRUSH GERAND #4 £4.99 lawrence.co.uk
ESCODA RESERVA KOLINKSKY-TAJMYR #6 £17.40 Amazon marketplace

However, they are quite expensive and don’t fit in my tiny handmade watercolour travel kits.

Therefore, when I was doing a bit of birthday shopping last year in MUJI (see my haul here) I was excited to have the idea of using a lip brush (make-up tool) as a portable retractable watercolour brush!

MUJI LIP BRUSH approx £6 – a bit pricey! Surely I can find a cheaper one on eBay?

Yes, yes I could! I found these colourful, bling-tastic ones for the bargain price of 99p for 4!

RETRACTABLE LIP BRUSHES BLING x 4 99p eBay SELLER: 3.61167 (HONG KONG)

However, they quite obviously look like make-up tools. I’m not a big fan of the look of make-up tools (though the MUJI one was rather nice) so I kept searching…

BINGO! And it is gold!

MAKEUP BRUSH PORTABLE RETRACTABLE COSMETIC TOOL LIPSTICK GLOSS STICK PEN 99p eBay SELLER: beautywoman-uk (CHINA)

I was on a roll… Surely I could find more, with different brush types?

YES! I had been looking for the wrong type of thing – instead of searching for lip brushes, I should have been searching for nail art brushes! Not only do these

Not only do these resemble my professional art watercolour brushes (albeit in silver) they also have pointed brushes that come in different sizes…

They come in sizes #2 #4 #6 #8 #10. Prices vary (see below) but ultimately you can get a full set of sizes for approx £3.43!

MARBLE SABLE ACRYLIC NAIL ART DESIGN PAINT PAINTING BRUSH PEN #2 #6 #8 £1.82 #10 x 2 £1.23 eBay SELLER: sunnyshop2015 (HONG KONG)

MARBLE SABLE ACRYLIC NAIL ART DESIGN PAINT PAINTING BRUSH PEN #4 99p eBay SELLER: timtimng (HONG KONG)

The nail art brushes claim to be sable, but I suspect that they are synthetic (see comparison photo above). They perform well, though, with no hairs falling out and it keeps its point. A pleasure to paint with!

They are called “marble” because of the purple plastic marble design barrel with the size on it. This is one of the only things I do not like about these brushes, so I am trying to think of ways to disguise or replace it!

The only other downside is that on arrival they are not all perfect. Lids are often ill-fitting; too loose or too tight – likewise with the marble barrel. However, I was able to fix them all by twiddling around gently with my jewellery pliers!

They’re packaged pretty well, with the plastic containers and the two lids handy for future projects such as travel watercolour container/pan ideas (see my travel watercolour kit ideas video here).

Check out my collection of nail art brushes in this week’s YouTube video! They make excellent cheap alternatives to retractable travel watercolour brushes!