Cleaning Your Makeup Brushes. A Rant Plus Tips.

***RANT ALERT, PLEASE READ RANT BEFORE SCROLLING DOWN TO TIPS***  :)  Thanks!

First of all let me address my biggest issue about makeup brushes.  Please wash you brushes frequently.  It is so shocking (and appalling) how many people I talk to that don't regularly clean their brushes.  To me it's like this; would you use the the same face cloth to wash your face every single day and never wash it????  I'm guessing we we would all say, hell no to that.  Well, that's the same as using makeup brushes every day and never cleaning them.  You are rubbing those brushes over parts of your face, which picks up oils, dead skin etc and if you never wash them, those brushes become a breading ground for really yucky stuff to grow and multiply.

For my personal brush use that I use just on myself (not my professional brushes in my kit) this is my schedule for brush cleaning:
I never go over 2 uses with out cleaning all my eye related brushes.
My blush and powder brushes I wash once a week.
If I use a brush for foundation I would clean that after each use.

When it comes to my professional kit I use, what I like to call, a "spot cleaner" like Beauty So Clean, in between clients.  For example if I'm doing a wedding party with lots of women right after one another, it's a great way to sanitize brushes on the go.

And then when I get home I take all my brushes and give them a "deep clean" with a brush shampoo.

Deep cleaning is so simple, and it will keep your brushes in tip top shape and your makeup application will look even better with clean brushes.  Trust me, it's true!  If your brushes have tons of makeup on them you will never be able to blend as well as you could with a clean brush.

So here is what you do.
1.  Get a brush shampoo or even a gentle 2in1 shampoo like Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo.  Squeeze a little out into the palm of your hand over a sink.
2.  Run some luke warm water (not hot because you don't want to melt the glue holding the bristles together in the farrel (metal part) of the brush or you'll start loosing hairs out of the brush).
3.  Then dip the bristles only into the stream of water and gentle rub the brush back and forth on the palm of your hand until it lathers.
4.  Rinse, squeeze out water, reshape
5.  And then lay the brushes out over the edge of your counter to dry.  It's that simple.


Here are my professional brushes from my work kit post wash and all laid out to dry.  It's important to hang them over the edge and not wrapped up in a towel or they could get mouldy.  YUCK!!

Here are the products I'm using right now:  Quo brush shampoo, Alcohol to spray my handles and metal spatulas, and I also spray my brush holders down with alcohol too, for good measure.  And the bottle in the back ground is organic grapeseed oil which is awesome at removing "greasy" products like lipsticks from brushes before shampooing them.

And I found this little contraption at Michael's craft store.  I can hang all my small handle brushes on this upside down to dry and there is no risk of water seeping up into the farrel and loosening the glue.

Thank you, and happy brush cleaning :)