Its the job we all hate doing….Brush cleaning!

But I wanted to share with you my favourite cleaners and what I use to help make this task a little easier and quicker.

We should ideally clean our makeup brushes every week or at least every 2 weeks, I try and give them a deep clean every 2 weeks and a spot clean every week, sometimes I just don’t have the time and some of my brushes take forever to dry.

The last few months though I had been suffering with the odd breakout so I am making sure I clean them a lot more frequently.

Reasons why brushes need to be cleaned regularly

-build up of bacteria, oils and skin cells

– can cause break outs and problem skin

-build up of old makeup

-dirty brushes can cause irritation to the skin and eyes

It is actually quite an important job to do, can you imagine all the bacteria our brushes and sponges hold from dust, our oils & skin cells plus old makeup, Have you seen all those horror stories going around about the beauty blenders? after reading some of those stories I make sure I wash mine after every use now and make sure it completely dries out, its just made me really paranoid about using them if I’m honest.

Now on to what I like using…These three products are my must haves!

I’ve recently brought this real techniques brush cleaning palette and I absolutely love it, it makes cleaning so much easier and quicker for me, a lot of people find these gimmicky and pointless but I disagree. I purchased this from superdrug as real techniques had a 3 for 2 offer on recently.

The deep cleansing gel is another one of my favourite cleaners, It smells nice and also doesn’t irritate my skin like some others I have used in the past, it also isn’t too thick and doesn’t leave any left over residue in my brushes.

now on to my brush holder, I got this a few years ago from ebay, its a life saver and helps to dry my brushes quicker and also upside down. You must make sure to dry them upside down so no water can get inside the handle and loosen the bristles and glue.

Here is a little demo of me cleaning my brushes with the Real techniques cleaner and palette.

the good thing about this is it has three different surfaces one for small, medium and larger brushes, I like using the middle section as I find it really deep cleans them.

Its easy to use, you just put your hand through the strap on the back and it rests on the back of your hand nicely.

Here is also what the brush holder looks like it holds a lot of brushes and all different sizes.

___________________________________________________________________

Some other brush cleaners I like to use.

I picked this up In ulta when I was In America, this is the quick spot cleaner I like to use as you just spray this directly onto the brush and wipe off the makeup with a paper towel, this one isn’t meant to be used with water, It has a lovely citrus smell which is one of the reasons I got it.

I picked this up in superdrug, its another quick brush cleaner, again you spray directly onto the brush and massage the brush onto a paper towel until no makeup is left on the brush. These are just really easy and quick to use when you don’t have time to deep clean your brushes, I would recommend these as a must have to sanitise and clean your brushes.

Another one I picked up In America sorry UK girls, this is meant to be a dupe for the Beauty blender solid cleaner, If I’m honest I don’t really like these type of cleaners I prefer a liquid or gel, I just find these get really messy as you swirl the brush into the bar of soap and I feel like I actually waste more product. This does smell nice though and comes with a little pad to help clean the brush, I think I would use these more for traveling as they are compact. Like to add one thing I did notice on a couple of my brushes after I used this was that My brushes felt a bit clogged up if that makes sense, Like if we leave conditioner in our hair, I made sure I completely rinsed after but for some reason I just didn’t like the way it made the bristles feel.

This is the same as the Sephora one, I didn’t actually buy this I got it in a beauty blender set, This is raved about but again I’m not keen on this type of cleaner and wouldn’t buy this separately , but I would take it for traveling.

Anyone heard about zote soap for cleaning makeup brushes? nope me either until I saw loads of girls raving about this on the app called makeupsocial, while I was in America I had to pick this up to try, I actually found this In the laundry section in Walmart because guess what its meant to be used for laundry but it does have loads of uses, It is a big bar of soap so I would recommend cutting a piece off and using it that way, also as it is a laundry soap I would add some oil of some sort to condition the brushes as It could be a little drying, a lot of girls swear buy this as its cheap and really deep cleans, making the brushes look brand new.

So that Is my collection of brush cleaners, I also love using the MAC brush cleaner but I recently used all mine so I need to purchase some more.

Just remember to rinse all the product out and let the brushes dry upside down and be completely dry before using, If you don’t have some type of brush drying gadget like I do I have seen lots of handy tips online plus loads of companies are starting to sell drying racks and other tools now.

Brushes are expensive and lets face it they are the best tools to use at applying makeup so we need to look after them and make them last longer, I love the feel of freshly cleaned brushes!

This was my routine and I hope it was helpful in any way.

thanks for reading