How To: Clean Your Makeup Brushes

Ok. Yea. So we've all been guilty of going weeks, months, and for some...YEARS without ever even thinking about cleaning our makeup brushes! Some don't even know that they can be cleaned or why they should be cleaned! Well ladies... Here are the top 5 reasons to clean your brushes and how.

1.  Makeup brushes harbor dead skin, old makeup, and bacteria. That's enough for me to skip the rest of the numbers! Haha!

2. Because they harbor all those nasties, pimples, breakouts, skin sensitivities...they become a hightened risk.

3. Your brushes will last longer when they are well taken care of. If you don't clean and moisturize your natural bristle brushes, the hairs will become brittle and break off. Yep, just like human hair. I have brushes that I've had for 6 years and they are still almost like new!

4. You can alter the color of makeup that you are trying to apply if the brushes are dirty. If you did a smoky eye the day before and today you are wanting to do a more natural look, good luck trying to get all that dark eye shadow off your brush without ripping half of the bistles out! I know! Been there, done that! I've actually had one eye darker than the other! haha! Maybe I'll start a trend! 

5. It's super easy and only takes about 10-15 minutes. Unless if you have a ridiculous amount of brushes. Then I have no clue how long it will take you... but it will still be easy! AND you will feel good about using a clean brush instead of some yucky, never been washed, bacteria carrying, pimple planting, brush. Dramatic? Yes. True? Also yes. Haha!

How To Clean Your Brushes...

What you will need:

• Dirty brushes
• Lightest colored dinner plate you have available (so you can be wowed at all the junk that comes off)
• Liquid Soap ( I use Dr.Bronners Castile Soap or Method dish soap)
• Water
• Old rag, small towel, or paper towels

Step 1: Take your plate and put about one or two tea spoons of soap and about the same of water. If you are using dish soap put equal parts olive oil to moisturize brushes. If using Dr. Bronners Castile Soap, there is no need for the oil as the soap already contains essential oils.

Step 2: Take your brush and swirl it around on the plate making sure you swirl at a slant. NEVER swirl with the tip facing down! That will destroy your brush!

Start with whatever brush you want. I usually start off with my smaller ones cause they take less time and I can hurry up and get them out of the way.

Step 3: After your brush is soaped up, point downward in a sink and massage the bristles gently. If you are too rough it will break the bristles and damage the brush. You will begin to see all the junk falling into the sink. Gross. I know. 

Step 4: Rinse off the brush. Make sure you are rinsing downward as well. The reason is that the brush will fall apart if water gets trapped in the barrel of the brush. It will loosen the bristles from the glue. Continue to rinse till water runs clear. 

If you really wanna know if all the gunk and soap is out, gently squeeze the brush into your other hand. If it is still dirty and needs a round 2 then go for it!

Step 5: After the water is running clear from the brush, gently squeeze the brush face down to remove excess water. Then take your rag, towel, or paper towel and gently do the same. 

To dry your brushes, place them at the end of a flat surface like a table or a counter top so that the bristles are not touching the surface but rather off of the surface.

This is the longest step. The drying. It can take anywhere from 8-12 hours for a large brush to dry. If you are in a hurry and need your brushes dry for use, then plug in your blow dryer in the lowest setting (cool) and gently dry your brushes. Also, blowdrying only works for REAL BRISTLE brushes! Not synthetic! If you try to dry synthetic brushes they will most likely get damaged as they are a form of plastic and do not handle heat well.

I hope this helps if you were on the fence about cleaning or not cleaning your brushes! Haha! It's easy, not hard and you really only have to do it every two weeks depending on how often you use your brushes! If you are like me and you do makeup almost every day...use your hands to apply your liquid foundation (except on really important makeup days) and that will at least keep any pimples caused by brushes away! By the way...if you use a sponge or pad during any process of your makeup application (including the eye shadow applicators) those should be thrown out every few days. Those hold on to even more dead skin, old makeup, bacteria, and cebum (face grease). You can find more of those at a Sally's near you. 

Hope you liked the "How To" for today! If you want to see something in particular then comment below and I will be more than happy to do it! And if you have a question...you can also post below!

XoXo! 

Janice