When’s the last time you cleaned your makeup brushes? Taking care of your brushes and cleaning them regularly means they last longer, makeup applies easier and your skin is not being exposed to unnecessary bacteria.

• Sephora Collection | The Natural: Citrus Brush Cleaner – I use this mostly on my eyeliner and eyebrow brushes.  It helps removes the product preventing any buildup from daily use.
• Johnson & Johnson | Baby Shampoo – gentle, gets the job done and it’s cheap, what more do I need to say.
• beautyblender | Solid Cleanser – great cleanser, but does cost a pretty penny.  You could also use a simple bar of soap.
• Brush guards – use these to keep your brushes from spreading out too much during the drying process, while still allowing them to dry.  Another way is to use paper towels.
• Towel – after washing I use a towel to lay all my brushes on to dry.
• Bowl – any ordinary bowl can be used to hold water and soap to wash or rinse the brushes.
• Brush silicon cleaner – these can help to get a better and deeper clean on your brushes.
• Alcohol – used to santize my brushes.  I only use this if I am doing makeup on friends.

Spot Cleaning

Spot cleaning allows you to go longer in between deep cleans using soap and water, and rather uses a spray cleaner.  Typically I only do this on eyeliner and eyebrow brushes after each use to prevent buildup of product over multiple days.  Occasionally I will use these to clean eye shadow brushes, especially I run out of clean ones.

Deep Cleaning

Washing

Typically I gather all my brushes into one pile next to the sink and one by one clean them via a few methods:

1. This method is more gentle on the bristles.  Swirling the brush either in a bowl of the baby shampoo + water.  I then take the brush and carefully swirl the brush in the palm of my hand to lather up the soap and to gently loosen up any product built up.
2. Wetting the brush and swirling in the solid cleanser and swirling it in the silicon brush cleaner to help loosen up any build of product.

Finally, I rinse under lukewarm running water and repeat if necessary.

I also make sure the brush is pointed downwards as to prevent as little soap or water from entering the ferrule.

Drying

After washing the brushes, I will fold a towel to prop the handles up higher as to prevent any water to get into the ferrule and loosening the glue, which would ruin the brushes.

In order to keep the bristles from fraying out too much I typically use brush guards, which allow the bristles to breath and dry properly while keeping the shape of the brush.  Another option is to take paper towels to wrap around the brushes and carefully use tape to secure.

Share your top tips for washing your brushes!