How To Clean Your Make-Up Brushes

Having acne prone skin and using a base on my face requires clean effective tools. My make-up brushes are a god send and without them my poor spotty face would be having my hands transferring all kinds of bacteria on it of a daily basis. Cleaning your brushes is an essential but gruelling task in order to keep your face blemish free and your make-up application as seamless as possible. There are a number of ways in how you can clean your brushes but I thought I'd write up a little post showing you my way of doing it in case you're curious.

I don't own many brushes as you can see, I don't apply a huge variety of products and I wash my brushes every few days so it isn't too much of a problem. My brushes are all MAC and Real Techniques which are fantastic may I add so check them out if you're on the hunt for good brushes! My brushes can get really grubby quickly, mainly from my base make-up and clogged up brushes aren't too hot at applying non-streaky foundation. Every few days I take my pot of brushes to the bathroom for a good wash at the sink. For this I use a Dove hand wash as they clean well without stripping the brushes too much so it leaves them soft and fluffy once they're dry. I also take a hand towel and some toilet paper.

First, I run the tap so it's warm, too hot can damage the hairs on the brushes and too cold won't lather up the wash enough to thoroughly clean them.

I wet the hairs on the brush and also my left hand.

I then pump the wash onto the head of the brush. The amount will depend on the size of your brush, an eye shadow brush will require a lot less than say a powder brush.

I then swirl the head of the brush around my wet palm in circular motions for around a 30 seconds. If you have quite a thick dense brush I suggest also using your fingers to work the product into the hairs.

Then thoroughly rinse the wash out of the brush under warm water. Give them a little squeeze with your fingers to get the excess water out.

And finally, wrap them in tissue or toilet paper and leave them overnight to dry.

The result? Clean fluffy brushes that work a dream. I've also heard you can microwave brushes zap all the bacteria out of them but my MAC brushes have metal on them so I don't think I'd even try this. You can buy fancy brush cleaners but like my skincare, I don't think something is properly clean without using a product and clean water. Give this a go and let me know how you get on or if you have any other suggestions on how to clean brushes.