Clean Your Makeup Brush in Minutes

February 28, 2015

Clean Your Makeup Brush in Minutes

 

I bet you rarely clean your makeup brush, I mean it's just makeup right?  Get ready for a buzzkill - there's more than makeup on that brush!  Did you know your brushes are safe harbor to dead skin, dirt and bacteria? Detoxing your brushes is simple, fast and effective especially if you have anti-everything essential oils in the house!  Detoxing with anti-bacterial AND anti-fungal properties creates an arch enemy to any germy mess.  Over the years I've tried several DIY versions with shampoo, vinegar etc but settled on the following routine using a few items you probably have around the house:

  1. Organic olive oil  - to loosen debris and condition natural bristles, not necessary for synthetic brushes but it helps remove the makeup.
  2. Castile soap  - for obvious reasons!  A gentle clean that leaves no soapy residue behind and, Dr. Bronner's Rose is my current fave, you should try it!
  3. Lavender essential oil  - this gift of nature is an antimicrobial genius in disguise, the pure stuff of course.
  4. Wash cloths  - I've linked to my favorite facial cloths, they're bamboo and so soft you'll be hooked too.

Back to the reasons why we should be more diligent about detoxing our makeup brushes, namely the business of breakouts and problem skin.  If you have challenges of this kind your skin is especially sensitive to the gunk and your dirty makeup brushes could be making things worse. Ah Ha! Indeed!

 

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STEP ONE - The conditioning pre-cleanse with olive oil

Pour approximately one teaspoon of olive oil on a clean wash cloth.  Swipe your brush back and forth with a swirl or two over the olive oil, this begins the process of loosening makeup while conditioning the bristles.  Move over to a clean spot on the wash cloth and use the same process to remove excess olive oil and start getting rid of some makeup. What a pretty mess!

 

STEP TWO - Soapy warm water

Add one teaspoon of Castile Soap and 1 drop of pure Lavender essential oil to 1/2  cup of warm water and swirl to blend.  Now you can dip your brush in the warm, soapy, lavender water and with your fingers, massage the soapy water into the bristles of your brush.  This is how the detox happens, that Lavender is key! TIP!  Try the best you can not to get the head of the brush (where the bristles meet the handle) too wet because you may loosen the glue used to secure the two together. Squeeze the water out by pinching with your fingers and repeat until your water is no longer clear and your brush is clean. When you think you've removed most of the makeup and ick, run hot water over the bristles to rinse.  Squeeze the water out with your fingers then wrap in a dry, clean wash cloth and press flat with the palm of your hand to soak up the water.  Unwrap the brush and fluff it with your fingers to it original shape!  Give it a full day to dry.  Some people put their clean brushes in a lingerie bag for the washing machine and toss it in the dryer along with a few dry towels to speed up the process! Alrighty then, there's no excuse to use dirty makeup brushes any longer.  After all we do keep our skin clean, exfoliated, wrinkle free and glowing let's not blow all that hard work by brushing old, oily, dead skin cell ridden makeup into our pores for crying out loud :-)

 

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