After two hours of torture I posted a picture of my freshly bathed brush babies on Instagram this evening and hundreds of you wanted to know how I clean them. Not one to disappoint my Fairy Followers behold my top tool tips 🙂 Over the past eight years of being a Make Up Artist I’ve changed my brush cleansing routine a number of times; from alcohol cleansers to affordable alternatives and weekly deep cleaning methods. It’s a task I whole heartedly dread; the bane of any artist’s life considering you require clean brushes daily for yourself and your clients. I have two main extensive sets of brushes; ones for personal use and ones for professional. I would recommend this for any artist looking to avoid contamination and narrow down your cleaning time considering you don’t need to deep clean your personal brushes as regularly.
For quick cleans I always keep a Mac Brush Cleanser on my vanity and in my kit. Although I have around ten foundation brushes in my kit for working on a few faces on location there are certain eye brushes I favour when working on a bridal party for example so I require a cleanser that will kill bacteria and dry immediately. This one product will clean, disinfect and condition the brush fibers so that your brushes will last longer. It’s convenient to use and is specifically designed to extend the life of high quality brushes. This brush cleanser also leaves your brushes smelling fresh and clean unlike other alcohol based cleansers, and of course helps shorten their drying time.
For deep cleansing the first thing I recommend investing in is a Brush Spa which you can read my full in depth review of here. This dual sided glove is by no means a gimmick and has a variety of different, necessary textures and surfaces for removing all makeup from both eye and face brushes while using only a small amount of cleaning solution. Available from Cloud 10 Beauty in a myriad of fun colours this magic mitt cuts down your cleaning time by half, keeps your hands dry and protected throughout the task, is ideal for any size brush and even re shapes your bristles while draining them leaving them perfect drying conditions.
As a beauty blogger I’m lucky enough to be sent a variety of high end shampoos and conditioners that may not always suit my hair type so I tend to use these to clean my brushes. Baby shampoo simply doesn’t cut it for me so I find good quality deep cleansing shampoos ideal. Shu Uemura Cleansing Oil Shampoo is my current holy grail for cleaning brushes. An excellent anti dandruff shampoo you can read about fully here, it’s ideal for soothing and calming the scalp meaning it’s also ideal for the sensitive skin on your face. The detoxifying properties instantly break down dirt and grime found in brushes leaving them squeaky clean and the pump bottle makes the torturous task that little bit easier.Â
This combination of the mentioned mitt, shampoo, and some Netflix or Soundcloud playing in the bathroom makes the whole ordeal that bit easier. Once my brushes have been deep cleaned I rinse them in cold water, drain and re shape them using the thumb grid provided on the mitt and lay them out to air dry on a large towel overnight. In terms of frequency, I quick clean my brushes everyday and deep cleanse once a week. For clients throughout the week I have enough brushes to alternate so that they’re clean for each new face before having to bath the entire batch. I hope you found this article helpful, how do you clean your brushes?
