Real Techniques - Dupes?

When it comes to make-up brushes, Sam Chapman knows her stuff and whenever I'm asked to give brush recommendations, without a second thought I point friends and family to the Real Techniques brush line. Affordable, synthetic and cruelty free brushes that I simply cannot fault.

I hadn't even thought of looking for Real Techniques dupes until I came across a few blog posts recently recommending ones available on eBay. With this in mind, I decided to pick up a set to see how they compared.

On first impressions, they look impressively similar. I had the option between 3 colours (Pink, Rose Gold and Blue) and I went for the blue option as the Pink and Rose gold were almost identical in colour to Real Techniques brushes I already had. Although they look almost identical to the Real Techniques brushes, they do feel noticeably cheaper in your hand.
I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the brush heads themselves, I'm yet to experience any shedding and application is very similar to that of the Real Techniques brushes. I don't find them to be as soft as Real Techniques brushes, but overall for the price I think they're great and I particularly liked that I was able to buy a set of specifically 'base brushes' as apposed to having to buy them singularly or as part of a varied overall face set.

I can't say I'll be giving up on my Real Techniques brushes just yet, but these will certainly be getting a lot of use and I'd highly recommend to people on a budget.

There are loads of similar sets floating around on eBay, and if you don't want to take the plunge and buy the set you can also find brushes being sold individually. You can find the seller I used here (really fast delivery!)

Have you tried any Real Techniques dupes? Or found any other great brush dupes out there? I'd love to hear!