"How to clean makeup brushes"
Cleaning your make-up brushes should be an important & regular part your beauty routine. If left to sit for long enough, they become the perfect environment for bacteria that can cause inflammation & infection in sensitive skin types. Gross! Because make-up brushes frequently come in contact with the skin, they also tend to accumulate a lot of oil, dirt & of course, make-up. Keeping you brushes clean ensures not only that they remain free of bacteria but also that they work just as well as they did they day you bought them. Here’s how to keep your make-up brushes squeaky clean.
First of all, you will need some equipment. Nothing expensive or complicated mind you, mostly items you can find around the house. Aside from the brushes that you’re about to clean, you will need: large bowl full of warm water, two smaller bowls (one for the detergent & one for lathering the brush) a facecloth or piece of cotton & most importantly, detergent. Any type of detergent will do; brush cleaner, shampoo, bubble bath, hand wash, body wash even dish washing detergent - they all contain the same chemicals in almost the same proportions. Lastly, be sure to cover the surface you’re working on. Newspaper, plastic wrap or an old towel work wonderfully.
Thoroughly Cleaning Your Make-up Brushes
1. Pour a small amount of detergent into one of the smaller bowls. Dip the dirty make-up brush first into the water & then into the detergent.
2. Swirl the bristles around the second small bowl to create a lather & save your hands from getting wet & covered with old make-up residue.
3. Rinse the brush in the bowl of warm water.
4. Pat dry using the facecloth or cotton.
5. Reshape the brush tip & let air dry!
You can use this method to clean any & all make-up brushes as well as flocked sponges. I find that it’s best to leave the clean brushes to dry in a place where they won’t be disturbed for eight hours or so. Most experts agree that personal make-up brushes should be cleaned at least once a week. This can be a bit much for some (myself included!) so below is a quick fix way to clean make-up brushes that doesn’t take too long & doesn’t require eight hours of drying time.
For this to work you will need to use a professional brush cleaner or brush shampoo. I use the brush cleanser developed by MAC. It costs around thirty dollars for 200ml but you only need to use a small amount of liquid each time. According to the girl who sold it to me, it’s also anti-bacterial & fast acting.
Quickly Cleaning Your Make-up Brushes
1. Pour a small amount of brush cleaner into one of your small bowls. Dip in the dirty make-up brush & give it a bit of swirl.
2. Pat dry using a tissue & viola! Done!
While on the subject of brushes, I’d like to point out the importance of good quality brushes. Cheap brushes are likely to shed & to fall apart because of the adhesives used. They’re also likely to be made out of animal hair, usually squirrel or goat. You can can never be sure that the bristles in these brushes were collected in a manner free of cruelty. In fact, it’s probably better to avoid using make-up brushes made out of animal hair altogether. Brushes form the Body Shop do not contain animal hair. Levhead & Aromaleigh also sell cute & reasonably affordable animal-friendly make-up brushes, though Aromaleigh won’t ship them to Australia. By far, my favourite animal-friendly make-up brushes are the Walk On The Wild Side brushes from The Brush Company - the bristles are the most amazing shade of electric blue!
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This post was written by Bella (contact).
It was written on January 8th, 2009 at 3:00 pm and was filed under How To, Inspiration and tagged with the words .
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