Cleaning Your Brushes.

Brushes are key to creating beautiful make up looks and I have mentioned a range of brushes in previous posts. My go to brushes are the real techniques brushes but also since my fantastic win from The Make Up Crew Dublin, I have been using my new brushes loads and I love them!

Before embarking on this blog, I have to admit I was very bad at taking care of my make up brushes. For the most part, my make up routine was so poor I rarely used brushes so now that I have them and want them to last, I am finally taking care of them like I should.

From reading posts from other bloggers, tweeting asking questions and also watching YouTube tutorials, you soon learn there are many ways to clean your brushes.

For me, I started to use baby shampoo and warm (not hot) water. The reason you do not want to use hot water on the brush is because you risk melting the glue which holds your brush together. You could end up with a brush in pieces and that’s a tragedy no girl wants to have.

So taking your brush, hold it upside-down with the bristles facing down into the sink and run the water on the brush hair only. Put some baby shampoo on your hand and swirl the brush around on your hand taking most of the makeup off it.

After this step rinse the brush again, squeezing out the excess make up.

Depending on which brush you are cleaning you may need to repeat the shampoo step. 

Foundation brushes can sometimes be the hardest brushes to clean.

When you are sure the brush is now clean, squeeze out as much of the water as you can from the brush head but do take care not to pull hard on the brush as you may have loosened up some of the glue while cleaning.

Fold a towel into a third of its size so it creates a shelf for the brushes to dry on.

Taking your clean brush, dry it against the towel. You need to be very careful not to lose the shape of the brush so mould it with your hands before leaving it to dry.

*I recently saw on YouTube, you can buy mesh nets for drying brushes which hold their shape and still allow enough air through the hair to dry the brush properly. I have since found them on EBay for €2 so will be using them once they get here to save my brushes.*

The shelf that you have created with the towel will help stop the brushes drying with one flat side so place all your clean brushes with the hairs hanging off the edge of the towel, in a warm place overnight until they are fully dry. I left mine in my bedroom under the radiator so it was warm but not hot enough to melt the glue.

Do take care of your brushes ladies, they are a great investment and will last a lot longer if you take care of them.

If anyone has any other suggestions or advice on how to clean makeup brushes, I'd love to hear from you.

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