To me, maintaining your makeup brushes is integral to flawless makeup.  That’s why doing a deep clean on your brush lot about once or twice a month depending on your usage, will greatly benefit the quality of your makeup application and will keep your skin healthy.  But of course we want to keep in mind the longevity of our brushes which can often times cost a pretty penny.  That’s why I recommend using a gentle DIY brush cleaner spray (my next post!) on a daily bases, especially on brushes that are used with any kind of creamy products (foundation, concealer, cream shadow, lipstick, etc.).

If you’ve never thought about giving your brushes a little lovin’, here’s how it’s done:

Step 1: To begin, gather your brushes, a small cup or bowl and some mild shampoo or face wash.  I’ve always used Dr. Bronner’s Baby Mild Liquid Soap (on just about everything) due to its gentle nature and sweet smell.  Mix a dollop of your cleanser with lukewarm water in your cup.

Side Note: This is my most favorite brush that I use for everything from liquid foundation to clearing away eyeshadow fallout.  It gets used and abused and as you can see, it has that creamy/greasy/downright dirty appearance.  When your brush looks like this, it’s ready for some TLC.

Step 2: Take your brush and swirl it around in your soapy mixture being mindful not to submerge your brush past the brush hairs.  Why?   That fancy metal is hiding the glue that binds the brush hairs and the wooden handle.  If water gets into that area and remains over time, it will break down the glue and ruin your brush.  See how my water looks beige?  That’s a week’s worth of foundation (ew).

Step 3: Rinse!  Thoroughly rinse your brush under water so that all of the soap is out and the water runs clear.

To make sure I got everything, I squeeze out the brush from the top down like so..

Step 4: Dry!  Rest your brushes on a sink so that the hair of the brush is hanging over the edge and able to drip dry.  It takes about a day for your brushes to fully dry.

By the end of the process, you’ll have glistening, sweet smelling brushes!