Cleaning Your Makeup Brushes - And why you should care...

Last night, I was doing a super fun inventory and putting things back to order on my dressing table.  I glanced over at my cute little jar (former candle jar) that holds all my brushes, and noticed that they were getting pretty gross.  Before I started selling Younique, I only wore makeup a few times per month.  As a result, I only used to wash my brushes once every few months.  Since I've started selling, I wear makeup pretty much every day.  As a result, my brushes need much more attention than they are used to getting.  Now makeup brushes range in price from very cheap to extremely expensive.  This is definitely one of those cases where the more you spend, the better quality brush you are getting.  In the video below, the red handled brushes are cheap and I've had them about a year.  The purple and orange handled brushes were considerably more expensive and I've had them about 6 months.  It's easy to see the quality difference in person, and the more expensive ones are holding up really well.  Either way, go with what you can afford, and just take really good care of them to get the most life out of them.

Now why does it matter?  There are several reasons.  First, when you allow makeup to build up in the brush, bacteria, dead skin cells, dust and other grossness builds up in it.  Every time you use it, you are smearing all that on your face.  Gross.  If you have issues with acne or sensitive skin, this buildup on your brushes is even harder on your skin, causing acne to spread and increasing sensitivity.

Secondarily, the makeup that is on your brush is old and dried out.  When you add fresh makeup to that, it mixes and causes your application to be rough.  Just like if you added dried paint flecks to your fresh paint, you'll leave scrapes and lines in your paint - same thing with your face.

Lastly, keeping your brushes clean improves the life of the brush.  Dirty bristles wear down faster than clean ones.  You spend your hard earned cash on your brushes, keeping them clean will help them last and last.  

So the process of cleaning brushes is super easy.  Use a gentle, unscented (if you can find it) soap or shampoo.  Baby shampoo works well, as does castile soap (this is a pure olive oil soap with no additives).  Both can usually be found in your local supermarket - the castile soap is usually found in the organic food aisle.  There are also plenty of brush cleaning solutions for sale.  The soap is more economical.  Some people like to add a bit of olive oil to their soap when cleaning their brushes to condition them.  I am not a fan - my brushes come clean and are easily shaped, so I don't feel the need to add oil.  As you can see in the video below, my soap contains lavender essential oil, so that helps keep bacteria down and adds a bit of conditioning too.  You decide how you like it.  If you use olive oil, do one part olive oil to two parts soap.

Use very warm water, and holding the brush, bristle side down, wet the brush and let some of the loose makeup rinse out of the brush.  Apply soap either directly to the brush bristles or to your hand or silicone mat.  Using a swirling motion, swish the soap through the brush while rubbing it on your hand.  If using a silicone brush mat (you can get one for about $10 at most beauty supply stores), use a swirling motion to swish the soap through the brush while rubbing it on the mat.  Rinse the dirty soap from your hand / mat, and repeat the process until the soap remains clean after swirling.  Rinse the soap out of the brush, squeeze excess water out,  re-shape the bristles and either lay over the side of the sink or hang to dry. That's it!  For more details, see the video below, or you can follow this link.