Cleaning makeup brushes are just as crucial as doing the house chores. And how I clean my makeup brushes from the products to the technique used is just as important. So much so, I integrate cleaning makeup brushes into my weekly routine.
But that wasn’t always the case, during the early years of applying makeup, I never washed my makeup brushes. I didn’t use a lot of brushes but can you imagine all that build-up over time from the ones I have used? Yikes!
The wake-up call happened while watching a talk show and the beauty expert on the show mentioned cleaning makeup brushes regularly. I went ahead and started cleaning the brushes. Once they were dried, there was a huge difference – they looked new again and felt much cleaner. Since then, no brush gets left in the dirt!
When I first realized that I needed to wash my brushes, I used to use regular soap and it somewhat worked. I had read about using oil (coconut oil, olive oil, any type of oil) but it didn’t seem to do a good job at all – the oils left an oily residue, post-wash. I moved onto trying baby shampoo and it worked amazingly.
So since baby shampoo worked, I decided to give the shampoo and conditioners that didn’t work well on my hair, a try on my brushes. To my surprise, what didn’t work on my hair, did an amazing job at cleaning the brushes. This has been my go-to solution to cleaning makeup brushes:
I wet the brushes into warm water. Then poured shampoo into a dish and dipped each brush in a decent amount of shampoo. Next step is to gently swirl the bristles on the palm of my hand or a brush cleansing palette to get rid of all the residue and then rinse the bristles under warm water.
After that, I use conditioner and add a bit of hand sanitizer or anti-bacterial soap into the mix and repeat the steps. This makes sure that the brushes are completely clear of residue and will soften the bristles. When the brushes are all cleaned, I give it a final rinse, lightly squeeze out any excess water and air dry using a makeup brush drying stand/tower.
Note: ALWAYS wash and dry brushes downwards so that water doesn’t go into the barrel and damage them. There you have it, this is how I clean my makeup brushes.
I like to clean my brushes on the weekend, usually Friday or Sunday night so I can let them dry overnight. I don’t clean ALL brushes at once. Any brush that has been used for liquid or cream products, as well as my eyelash curler and any beauty sponges, get washed weekly. While the rest (i.e., brushes that have been used for powdered products and tools – spoolies, mascara comb) get washed every other week. And all eye/lip pencil sharpeners get cleaned out after every use.
Seriously, how oddly satisfying is it to see dirty brushes, clean again?!