How To: Cleaning Your Brushes

If there's one thing I never cared to know about makeup is the fact that your brushes need to be cleaned on a regular basis. I guess it never crossed my mind that, hey makeup buildup is gross for my face.

Can you imagine? Your face is all clean and moisturized and then it gets caked with new makeup and makeup from days and weeks before. All that oil and dirt getting in your pores. Bleh! No wonder I was looking like a preteen boy hitting puberty! If you're having random breakouts and don't wash your brushes, chances are that your utensils are the problem. Plus, clean makeup brushes feel amazing and they blend SO much better!

I try to clean my brushes once a week (usually Mondays for me, but I forgot to this week, which led me to this "how to"!) and that seems to do just fine for my face considering that I really only put makeup on for work and that's only four days a week. You can do it as often as twice a week if you like.

What you will need:
-A towel
-Gentle shampoo (I normally use baby shampoo, but I unfortunately don't have any, so I used my personal shampoo).

What to do:
-You will need to use lukewarm water. Be sure to keep the brushes angled down and try not to get the handle wet. If it happens, it happens, you just don't want your handle to start rusting.

-Lather the brush following the direction that the bristles go (so that means downward).

-Rinse until the water runs clear. For brushes that are heavily soiled, you will have to repeat the lathering process a couple times.

-Squeeze the excess water from the bristles and reform into it's original shape. Be sure to smooth out any messed up hairs (otherwise you'll end up with something crazy when it dries!). Lay flat on the towel and leave to sit. It does take several hours to dry. Tip: if you have a window in your bathroom, open it to get some air flow. It helps with the drying process.

And presto! Clean makeup brushes!

Excuse the poor quality on the photos, there isn't much natural light in my bathroom! And since my laptop is down, I can't place the photos where I would like them to. I apologize on that too!