specific colors and brands

Hello painters! I am a stilt walker, but am branching out with face painting. I'm so excited about this!!! If you could pick 48 colors and brands, which would you choose? From my research I'm leaning towards Wolfe for white and black, Diamond FX and Paradise. Any thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Wolfe has always been my favorite...& DFX was my second.

Tag has some awesome colors & is comparable. They also offer the advantage of split-cake rectangular packaging which looks like a huge organizational point.

The Paradise metallics are so beautiful.

I found that Paradise dried faster in winter weather for me, (even inside) if that is a consideration. (where are you located?)

Overall I prefer the wax-based paints vs. glycerine & would chose the colors YOU like best in each of the primary, secondary & tributary colors because that is what you gravitate to & use. Then I would choose shades that would work well with those colors (ie: I have a dark metallic purple paired with a lavender, a teal paired with a royal blue etc.)

the Wolfe black & white
magenta rather than (or in addition to)pink
several blues & teals
gold (I use Kryolan Bronze)
silver (I have a fab/wolfe split I made myself--but considering the Paradise when this is spent)
neons/neon rainbow/splits (dfx/tag)

I have heard wonderful things about Starblends--and if I was putting together my first kit today, might search that out & invest especially if I were in a humid area.

Welcome to the Forum, betherfly!
Where are you from?
There are different brands readily available to different regions and countries. Local painter can help you with sourcing your paints. If you go into your Profile, above, and type in your general location, you can get much more useful information.

For your kit,
what do you own now,
and what is your budget?
In the beginning, I invested too much money in different colours, and I should have spent less money, and more time at practicing. I wish there had been jams, to go out and meet other face painters, try new paints, different brushes, glitters, etc.

Happy Painting!

Hello thank you! i live in louisville. it gets pretty muggy, so that's one reason why i thought those brands would work as well as the quality. i don't really have a budget. this may sound a bit crazy, but $1000. that's for tent, chair, the whole nine yards. i'm a performing artist, so i have some of the basic business cards, magnets, and website.

My budget was $1000 for my initial setup too, and I had nothing. I'd just been painting with a kit we have at work (which was a good chance to figure out what I liked/didn't like). I was able to get a really versatile first kit with high quality paints, brushes and so on.

But one thing I learnt when buying up for the first time is that there's really no way to know what you'll like. There's so much good advice around that it can get a bit confusing, because in the end each person has pretty specific preferences. So like fesspenter said, don't go overboard on your first investment, just get what you need and reassess once you've tried things out.

I bought mainly TAG and Face Paints Australia, because they're both easy to order and I don't have to manage many different pot sizes! I did end up getting Wolfe White and Black, and I'm very happy with that decision! Although I'd never heard of Starblends, if I had I would seriously have considered investing, as I've never heard a bad word about them.

It's so exciting choosing, have fun!

I would invest in an appetizer palette of paint from the FacePaintForumShop (that colourful rectangle in the above column header.)
Diamond F/X has a mini-palette for about $30.
I would purchase Global Strong Black, and, either Cameleon White, or Global White for black and white line work.
I would buy 10 Fantasy World Wide Sponges (or cut some tack sponges)
I would purchase a minimum of 4 each of Loew & Cornell Gold Grip Brushes in sizes #3, and #4.
I would purchase a few #6 rounds in different brands.

Then... I would practice my line work.
And, get your Profile updated so you can be invited to jams in your area, so you can try different brands. You can share paint orders with other painters.... if one orders one colour, and the other person orders another colour, you can cut them in half and share them, so you can get two colours for the price of one.
You can go broke on all the lovely colours and glitters. Play in the paint.

Happy Painting!

I went with TAG myself . DFX is great too and so is WOLF but they are basically the same as TAG only more expensive. There are certain colors you can only get in WOLF and DFX so i just get those and the rest is TAG.

I tried wolf white but it was too creamy for my liking and the black STAINED. So i stick with the 90gm TAG for black and white. Way better deal.

48 colors? wow. ummm well I would get the basic 12 color pallet with black and white on the side.
This gives you
Red
Orange
Yellow
light green
dark Green
Light blue
Royal Blue
Teal
Lilac purple
Dark Purple
Pink
Brown

Some extras i found come in handy
DFX Metallic Purple
TAG Berry Wine
TAG dark blue
TAG Pearl White
TAG Bronze
TAG Metallic blue (dark and light)
Mehron Gold
Mehron Silver
Mehron Metallic Green
All the TAG neon colors

I also have some mint green, powder blue, sea green, and pearl black, all TAG. But I don't use them very much. Very specialized colors used for specific things.

I have too many rainbow cakes lol I would have them all if I could.

So I'll recommend a few
Base Blenders:
Neon Rainbow
SnowFlake
Tiger
Sunset

One Stokes:
Rose
Leaf
Dolphin
Lianne's Rainbow 

As for extras, don't forget some BAM stencils!
Also here's a blog post on My 5 Favorite Things From My Face Painting Kit

And
Face Painting Kit Essentials

Check out the rest of the blog for more tips and tricks and product reviews.

Good luck!

I would reccomend the wicked sponges over the fantasy. same texture, but more robust--and the lovely little wicked petal sponges for butterflies and little eyes.

same as everyone above -
start small (don't spend the whole budget right away, there will be lots of stuff you want later, and some you may regret getting),
figure out what designs you will do and get colors you like for them,
get or make a few rainbow and one stroke cakes in colors you will use,
metallic/pearl colors, adds that extra pizzazz to just about everything,
GOOD brushes (see fesspenter above),
i have wolfe black & white for linework,
glitter gel or dry glitter.

same texture you say? and more robust you say?

Might just have to try them out. Some of my older Fantasy sponges are falling apart, but it took over a year lol.

Thank you everyone! i went and took everyone's advice. i tried not to go overboard(hahaha! that was really difficult) went with your suggestions of brushes. also, forest-fairy, i really enjoyed your blog. it was really helpful to me. thank you so much for sharing

No problem