Fude Talk: Why We Chose Kakishibu-Dyed Saikoho and Ne-yose for a Light, Airy Goat-Hair Blush Brush

Designing a makeup brush often does not begin with its shape.

It begins with a specific problem.

This time, we wanted to create a flame-shaped blush brush.

It needed the precision expected from a flame-shaped brush, allowing the tip to control exactly where color is placed. At the same time, the belly of the brush needed to remain soft and airy, so that color could melt naturally into the skin without leaving harsh edges.

Most importantly, we wanted it to offer:

The excellent powder pickup of goat hair, without becoming so dense that it would easily apply too much color.

At first, this may sound contradictory.

Goat hair is loved precisely because it picks up powder efficiently, releases it well, offers good resilience, and performs reliably across many products. However, when used with highly pigmented blush, those same strengths can sometimes become a challenge.

Once too much product is picked up, the color may be deposited too quickly on first contact with the skin. Unlike face powder, blush is not always easy to correct once it has been applied too heavily.

So we began asking ourselves:

Could we create a blush brush that retained the practicality of goat hair while still producing a light, airy finish?

If Gray Squirrel Is Less Likely to Overapply Blush, Why Did We Not Choose It?

When people think of a soft, airy blush brush that is difficult to overapply with, gray squirrel hair is often the first material that comes to mind.

That makes perfect sense.

Gray squirrel hair is exceptionally fine and soft. It picks up powder more gently and releases it in a controlled way. With highly pigmented powder blushes, it can slow down color buildup and create a more transparent, diffused finish.

If our only goal had been to prevent heavy application, gray squirrel might have seemed like the most direct answer.

However, we wanted this brush to work not only with a certain type of powder blush, but also with the increasingly varied makeup routines people use today.

Before applying powder products, many people may already have layered:

• Liquid foundation or cushion foundation
• Cream blush
• Liquid blush
• Cream bronzer or contour
• Moisturizing sunscreen or primer

Even after setting the skin, some oil, wax, or moisture may remain on the surface.

Gray squirrel hair is extremely fine and delicate. Because of this, it generally requires more careful use and maintenance. After contact with a moist or emollient base, the hairs may clump together more easily and need to be cleaned or carefully combed back into shape to maintain their original softness and bloom.

For a precious gray squirrel brush, this attentive care can be part of the experience.

But this time, we wanted to create a blush brush that was better suited to frequent daily use and more forgiving of modern makeup routines.

That is why we did not choose gray squirrel.

We wanted the brush to feel light, but also dependable. It needed to work beautifully with powder blush without requiring the user to worry every time it came into slight contact with oils or moisture from the base underneath.

Eventually, our attention turned to:

Kakishibu-dyed Saikoho goat hair.

Why Kakishibu-Dyed Saikoho?

Saikoho is a classic high-grade goat hair.

It offers an excellent balance of softness, resilience, powder pickup, and durability. It can be used with blush, bronzer, contour, face powder, and many other powder products. Compared with extremely delicate squirrel hair, goat hair is also more stable in everyday use and better suited to frequent cleaning.

That was one of the main reasons we chose goat hair:

We wanted this brush to feel light and refined, without becoming something that had to be handled too cautiously.

On top of Saikoho, we chose a traditional Kakishibu dyeing process.

Kakishibu dyeing is not simply a way of turning goat hair brown. After Kakishibu treatment, the hair often feels warmer, more stable, and more resilient.

We like to describe this change as:

Giving the goat hair a natural protective layer.

This is only a metaphor. Kakishibu does not create a literal artificial coating over the hair. Rather, the treatment can give the hair a more durable and stable character, which aligns with our goal of creating a brush suitable for long-term, frequent use.

For modern makeup routines that combine liquid, cream, and powder products, Kakishibu-dyed goat hair is also easier to care for than delicate gray squirrel hair.

Its appearance reflects a traditional craft, but its practicality is just as important.

The material problem had been solved.

But another issue soon appeared.

Saikoho Is Excellent, but It Can Also Be “Too Good” at Picking Up Powder

Saikoho has outstanding powder pickup.

If it is used in a highly compact, tightly gathered brush structure, the brush head may become quite dense. For face powder, pressed powder, or products that require more coverage, that density can produce efficient and even application.

But for the blush brush we wanted to create, excessive density was not necessarily the ideal answer.

With highly pigmented or loosely pressed blushes, a dense goat-hair brush may pick up a large amount of product at once and release it quickly when it first touches the skin.

We wanted to preserve Saikoho’s excellent powder pickup, but we did not want all of that color to be released at the first point of contact.

So the focus of the design shifted from:

Which hair material should we use?

to:

How should the internal structure of the brush bundle be built?

This was when we revisited two traditional methods used in Kumano brushmaking:

Saki-yose and Ne-yose.

Saki-yose: Precision, Order, and Consistency

Saki-yose is also sometimes called Saki-zoroe.

It uses the natural hair tips as the alignment reference.

The artisan first arranges the natural tips according to the intended design, then uses wooden shaping molds called koma to create the final brush profile. Traditional Kumano brushmaking does not cut off the natural tips simply to create a neat silhouette. Every hair that touches the skin still retains its natural tip.

The advantages of Saki-yose are clear:

• Concentrated and orderly tip alignment
• Easier control of brush density
• A clean and stable brush profile
• Strong consistency between individual brushes
• Easier creation of precise flame, cone, and pointed shapes

This is one reason why most modern high-quality makeup brushes are made using Saki-yose.

It is refined, reliable, and highly suitable for standardized production.

However, because the tips are more concentrated and the brush bundle can more easily become dense, using Saki-yose with a material as efficient at picking up powder as Saikoho may result in a brush that feels more substantial and compact than what we were aiming for.

We were not trying to create a goat-hair brush that prioritized density and efficiency.

We wanted a goat-hair brush with space, layering, and breathability.

That led us to Ne-yose.

Ne-yose: Aligning from the Roots and Preserving Natural Length Differences

Ne-yose uses a completely different approach.

Instead of aligning the hair tips, it aligns the hair roots.

Natural hairs are not all exactly the same length. When the roots are aligned at the same level, the tips naturally form a staggered, layered arrangement.

This structure is not created by trimming the tips.

It comes from preserving the natural variation in the original hair lengths.

In Japanese, this kind of staggered structure is often described as:

Zurashi.

Within this type of bundle:

Longer hairs extend farther outward and define the overall silhouette of the brush.

Shorter hairs remain within the interior, adding support and resilience without all ending at the same height.

A tree is a useful way to imagine this structure.

The longer hairs resemble outward-reaching branches that define the overall shape. The shorter hairs resemble the inner branches that fill the space and provide support, keeping the form full without creating a single dense wall of hair tips.

Under otherwise similar conditions, Ne-yose is more likely to create:

• Natural volume
• A lighter, airier feel
• A more open bloom after washing
• A layered internal structure
• Softer and more gradual contact with the skin

According to the artisan we consulted, Ne-yose also tends to reduce complete hair shedding, known as kenuke, and makes it possible to create staggered brush shapes that are more difficult to express through Saki-yose.

This was exactly the kind of structure we had been looking for.

Longer Hairs Make First Contact, While Shorter Hairs Gradually Add Support

We did not choose Ne-yose simply because it sounds more traditional or rare.

We chose it because it directly responded to the problem we were trying to solve.

Within the staggered structure created by Ne-yose, the longer hairs make contact with the skin first. The shorter interior hairs then gradually begin to provide support.

Instead of an entire dense surface of tips pressing against the skin at once, contact and pressure build progressively.

From our own testing, this creates a soft, gradual sense of rebound.

When the brush first touches the skin, the outer longer hairs place down a thin veil of color. As the brush moves and gentle pressure is added, the shorter internal hairs begin to participate in blending.

For Saikoho, which already has strong powder pickup, this layered structure can help distribute product more evenly within the brush bundle and release it gradually as the hairs move and flex.

Rather than pressing all the color onto the skin at once, the brush allows it to build in layers.

This is what we mean by “airiness.”

It is not about using very little hair, nor is it about making the brush loose or weak. It is about leaving enough space and layering within the bundle for powder to be released in a lighter, softer, and more controllable way.

Of course, the final performance of a brush is never determined by a single technique.

Hair material, hair length, hair quantity, density, ferrule size, flame-shaped profile, and the experience of the artisan all contribute to the final result.

Ne-yose is only one part of that design.

But for this brush, it became the most important part.

In the End

When designing a brush, we do not want to choose a special-sounding technique first and then search for reasons to justify it.

The real process should begin by deciding what kind of experience the brush should create, and then finding the most suitable material, structure, and method to achieve it.

Gray squirrel is exceptionally soft, but it may not be the best match for the level of everyday practicality we wanted.

Standard Saikoho is versatile, but its strong powder pickup and release can move away from the lightness we were trying to create.

Saki-yose is precise and consistent, but it may not produce the natural layering this brush required.

So we ultimately chose:

Kakishibu-Dyed Saikoho × Ne-yose

Not because these choices are necessarily superior to every alternative, but because together, they formed the most appropriate answer for this particular flame-shaped blush brush.

When you finally hold it in your hands, we hope you feel more than the softness of natural goat hair.

We hope you also experience the way color is gently lifted, slowly released, and allowed to melt into the skin like air.

Note: This article is based on publicly available information, traditional Kumano brushmaking techniques, conversations with artisans, and our own product testing. The descriptions of brush structure and performance reflect our current understanding based on those sources and experiences. Specific production methods and terminology may vary between workshops.