Making sure to clean your makeup brushes regularly is very important, but as it can be very time consuming, especially if you have a lot of brushes, most people do it very infrequently, or with some, never at all. You must clean your makeup brushes as over time, lots of bacteria, skin cells and old makeup residue can build up on the bristles, and then this is then spread all over your face each time you use the brushes, which can cause breakouts. Although it is recommended that we give our brushes a deep clean once a week if we use them regularly, it does take quite a long time, so I like to give my brushes a deep clean once every two weeks, and then in between, spot clean them every other week, or with eye brushes that tend to get dirty quite quickly, maybe every three days.
To give my brushes a deep clean, I like to Johnson's Baby Shampoo (not shown), as it is very inexpensive at €4 for 500ml, and although it cleans my brushes really well, it is very gentle on the bristles. When cleaning my brushes, I like to pour a tiny amount of baby shampoo and warm water into a bowl and mix them together. I then dip the head of my brush into the mixture and swirl it around until it is clean. I then rinse my brush under the sink with water to ensure that there is no baby shampoo left in the bristles, and I fix the shape of the brush with my hands. I then lay my brushes on a towel at the edge of my desk with the head of the brush hanging over the side to ensure that the shape of the brush doesn't change. When I am cleaning my brushes, I will usually change the mixture after every three or four brushes, so I usually wash all my foundation and concealer brushes together, then cheek brushes, and finally, eye and lip brushes, as I don't want to contaminate my brushes. I usually give my brushes a deep clean this way every second week, especially the ones that I use very frequently.
The second way that I clean my brushes is by spot cleaning them with MAC Brush Cleanser (as you can see in the photo, I need to buy a new one soon!). I use this every other week to spot clean my face brushes, and probably about twice a week to clean eye brushes, as I always like to use a clean blending brush to blend my eyeshadow. This brush cleanser is great, as it cleans the brushes really well, it doesn't take long, and it dries very quickly, so I can use my brushes about an hour after cleaning them. To use this product, you just pour a small amount of it onto a clean cotton pad, and then swirl the brush head around, and all the dirt comes off onto the cotton pad. Some people use a tissue with this product, but the girl at my local MAC counter said that cotton pads are better, as bits of tissue can sometimes get caught in the brush hairs. When I am finished cleaning my brushes with this product, I just hang the head of the brush over the edge of my desk, to keep the shape of it. Although the MAC brush cleanser is quite a lot more expensive than using baby shampoo, it is much quicker and easier, and it is especially much better to use for cleaning eye brushes, as I clean them so frequently, and they dry much faster.
Both of these methods work very well for me, and my makeup brushes have never looked cleaner!
