If there is one thing I hate, it's cleaning my make up brushes. I think it's every beauty lovers nightmare. It's just so boring, long and yet so needed. In a perfect world I'd be washing my brushes every weekend, with a spot clean spray in between. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Being honest and gross, it's probably been about a month since I last cleaned my brushes. (Yuck!)
Disgusting, I know. Usually I'm not too bad and sometimes do it the day before a night out or before a trip away. However, today I just needed to do it and felt like making it into a blog post to make it a little more interesting for me, and to show you that there is a cheap alternative aswell.
Here are the dirty culprits. I honestly don't really have that many brushes in total, so it's not a massive hassle but I am going to be investing in a few more eye brushes soon, as you can never have enough blending brushes. The things I use are: A bowl of luke warm water, a small bowl/pot, kitchen towel - I have toilet paper in the picture however this doesn't work aswell, if not just use your hand!
The product I use to clean the brushes is the Johnson's baby shampoo. I use this because I am quite sensitive around the eyes, especially with hay fever and occasionally suffer with blepharitis, and this has helped clear it up quite a bit, so I know it's kind to eyes and doesn't sting. It's also very cheap, and works perfectly at cleaning brushes!
My first step is to dunk the tip of the brush in the water. I usually change the water after two brushes, or one if it's a really gross brush! I also do it in the order of face brushes, eye brushes and then tricky ones such as gel liner brushes which take longer to get the grub off. Make sure you are holding the brush down, otherwise the water goes up the ferrel of the brush and can unglue the glue and make the hairs fall out.
I then dab it into the smaller pot with the shampoo in, I don't use much, probably a 50p piece size for every 5 brushes or so. A little goes a long way, and you can always add more. I then swirl it around on the kitchen paper or my hand (I couldn't photograph this part one handed - sorry) and keep dipping it in the water and more rubbing, until it's just clear in your hand.
I then give the brush a good squeeze and a little shake, before reshaping it to how it was before. This is just easier to do so it dries in that shape. Then I have a towel set up, where one half is folded over so there's a bit of a ramp, and lay my brushes pointing downwards. You can also use the hair tie on a towel rack or anything to keep them pointed down, my aren't full on down however just an angle is better than nothing as it keeps the water away from the ferrule.
And thats how I clean my brushes! I am definitely going to try to increase my time spent on brush cleaning, and maybe also invest in a spot cleaner for day to day laziness.
What do you use to clean your brushes?
