If there is one brush every makeup artist from here to edge of the Earth has owned at one time or another, it’s the MAC 217. More than a humble blending brush, the 217 has the perfect tapered edges for crease work, while still being flat enough to lay down colour, and it’s soft enough to blend everything out. If you asked me to recommend only one eyeshadow brush that would give you the most bang for your buck, it would be the 217. But what if I told you there was a dupe for a quarter of the price?
Many brush companies have claimed to make dupes of the MAC 217 – possibly most notable being Sigma (which has attempted many MAC brush dupes over the years), but none of them cut the mustard for me when it came to softness and quality of bristles. That is until I finally got my hands on the Morphe M433 at Imats a couple of weeks back. I knew I had a brand new MAC 217 waiting for me at home, so it was the perfect time to snatch it up and compare the two, both fresh right out of the package!
Right from the start of my little experiment I knew it was going to be hard to find differences between these two. They both feel soft and flexible, with the Morphe M433 being ever so slightly firmer, and the MAC 217 being ever so slightly softer. And when I say “ever so slightly” I really mean it, it’s almost undetectable. The bristles splay out more, slightly, in MAC’s version. You can see this in the side by side comparisons and Morphe’s handle is actually 1/4 inch longer. Both have the matte black wooden handles with silver name embossing. MAC’s has a more defined crimp in the ferrule.
Now I can say I own several MAC 217 brushes, and have always found the investment worthy of the price. Given how long the last and well they hold up i’ve never second-guessed it. However, knowing I got my hands on the Morphe M433 for almost a quarter of the price of one MAC brush has me wishing I had picked up a few! This is most definitely a dupe in my opinion, and I’ll be stocking up with a few more! (I need more brushes like I need another hole in the head, but anything that helps me procrastinate cleaning my brushes…).
Have you tried either the MAC 217, or the Morphe M433? Do you notice the difference? Let me know which brushes you would love to see a review/dupes for – I’ve been in a bit of a brush love-in recently.
