How To: Clean Your Makeup Brushes

One of the most important parts of up-keeping a makeup and skincare routine is definitely cleaning your makeup brushes. They hold incredible amounts of dirt and old makeup in them and remember that time you got the flu well so does your makeup brushes, which is why it is so important to take care of, and clean your brushes. Now I am definitely not saying that you have to rush out and purchase the most expensive brush cleanser on the market, you can do this very inexpensively, just like I have.

What You'll Need:

• Dirty Makeup Brushes (of course)


• Baby Shampoo (or alternatively you can use a combination of olive oil and dish-washing detergent) I'm using Johnson's No More Tears Baby Shampoo which I picked up for $4.55


• Paper Towel or a Hand Towel ( I find paper towel more convenient)


• A small bowl

Step One:


Pour a small amount of the baby shampoo into the bowl, there doesn't need to be that much and you can always add more so only use a little about. When i poured it in the bowl it was a roughly the size of a 50c piece and then it expanded (shown below).



Step Two:

Grab the first brush that you want to clean and gently run it under some warm water (a little warmer than luke warm to kill off the bacteria).



Step Three:

Tap the damp brush into the baby shampoo and then swirl it around (or in the direction that you would normally use to the brush to apply makeup) in the palm of your hand. It can get a bit icky so you can swirl it around in a another small bowl if you would rather not get the old makeup over your hand.



Step Four:

Bring the brush back over to the warm water and start to gently rinse. Watch the color of the water as you are doing this as the sign that the brush is clean is when the water runs clear. For some brushes you wish to repeat steps 3 and 4 a few times to make sure the brush is clean. I do this especially when I am dealing with brushes that I apply face makeup with since they collect the most bacteria. tap the brush over the sink so it's not soaking and begin to drying the brush.

Step Five:

For the drying step, I tear off two sheets of paper towel and fold them together. In between the two sheet i place a brush that i don't intend cleaning in the middle so the that brushes I am cleaning can go in a downward fashion. This is important because if the water drips down into the brush it can destroy the glue that holds all the bristle in and can result in a lot of damage to the brush. I let my brushes dry overnight, so it's best to do this late afternoon/evening.



How often should I clean my makeup brushes?

I feel that it is definitely more important to clean your face brushes on a more frequent basis and any other brushes you may you on a daily basis. So I recommend that once a week for face brushes (or even every second or third day depending on preference and amount of time spare) and every fortnight for other brushes (unless you use them very frequently and feel they need a clean).

Hope this was helpful :)