Cleaning Your Makeup Brushes! A MUST Do!

CLEAN THOSE BRUSHES!!

Before I get in to more makeup blogs I want to stress the importance of making sure your brushes are clean when you use them. Not only do makeup brushes attract skin irritating bacteria but leaving old makeup in your brushes can feel disgusting on your eyes and face, and if you leave old eyeshadow you run the risk of mixing unwanted colors all over. Basically you're going to end up looking like a hot mess rather than a flawless beauty... not so super!

I personally like to keep my icky brushes separate from my clean ones, one because I have a lot of brushes and two I tend to forget which ones I need to clean.

This is just a plastic cup from old cotton swabs that I wrote on with a marker! 

I think it's cute!

The first type of cleaning that you can do (I do this mostly while on a freelance job) is spot cleaning.

This means getting a tissue and an alcohol based cleanser that will quickly dry.

 For this I like to use the MAC Brush Cleanser

ELF also makes one and I'm dying to try the Cinema Secrets one because I've heard it smells like VANILLA.

But I love my MAC one.

I decant it into a spray bottle(you can get these at any drug store or Sallys)

Spray your brush thoroughly

 Now move your brush in the motion that you would use it on your face.

Flat Brushes: Sweep back and forth

Powder Brushes: Swirl in a circle

And so on.

Now you have a brush ready for another application in a matter of seconds!

Now after about a  month of use or a week for foundation brushes(preferably) you're going to want to deep clean your brushes.

This means getting down and dirty with SOAP AND WATER!

A couple of the soaps that I like to use are the Sonia Kashuk Brush Cleanser and plain old Baby Shampoo.

In the pictures I'm using baby shampoo.

During this entire process keep the ferrule (metal or plastic part of the brush that holds bristles) facing down.

You DO NOT want water to get into this area because it can disintegrate the glue causing your bristles to fall out! NOT GOOD!!

 1st

 Place your hand under slightly warm water and swirl your brush on the water running off of your hand.

#2

 Place a small blob of soap on your finger tips (obviously kind of hard to see but it's there I promise)

#3

 Swirl your brush gently around in the soap. You should see the makeup coming out of the brush.

Swirl for a few seconds.

#4

Rinse your brush the same way you started. rinse until the water runs clean.

You may need to repeat steps 2&3 on some harder brushes like foundation brushes.

#5

Gently squeeze out the excess water and shape the brush back to its original form.

#6

Set your brush on a paper towel to dry.

They have fancy upside down holders now, but really... this way works just fine.

And now you're ready to do a fun face of makeup with nice CLEAN brushes!

Thanks for reading!

&>&> Chelcey