How To Clean Makeup Brushes

Video Transcript

Let's teach you to clean your makeup brushes, like a pro.

First off, let's clean the work surface. This is really important because you want to make sure that you don't get any cross contamination on your makeup brushes. We're also going to lay a second barrier here but this is a really important step.


Next, I like to use a clean towel as an additional work surface to create another barrier. I also like to roll the towel to make a little ledge for my makeup brushes. What this is going to do is it's going to give me a 360 degree dry, so that my brush heads have air exposed all around.


Next, we want to get a makeup brush holder with a lid, and you can find these all over the internet. I just happened to get this one on Amazon, it has these really groovy beads inside. The lid opens and closes and keeps your brush protected from any airborne particles.


Next, I like to use another towel for my dirty brushes to keep my clean brushes away from cross-contamination. Grab your dirty makeup brushes. We're going to use some Tiger's Eye brush soap, and it's beautiful. It's also powerful and it has honey and tea tree oil which are natural disinfectants and other oils to break down makeup.


First step, wet your Tiger's Eye brush soap. You want to make sure that it's nice and wet and then wet your brush under warm water. You want to make sure the brush is saturated before you begin. Using a back-and-forth motion, rub a brush on top of the Tiger's Eye brush soap, and then work the lather into the brush. Once you've cleaned all the makeup out of your brush, rinse well with warm water.


For pros, I like to do a double cleanse. For your double cleanse work the lather for 20 seconds. Don't forget that bacteria can get on your brush handles, so don't forget to wash them as well. Once the brushes are clean, rinse well. Squeeze out any excess water. Then dry your brush and handles with a dry paper towel immediately.


Now it's important that you dry your brushes really well. This does a couple of things: It keeps your makeup brushes in really good shape because water can destroy your brushes, and they can detach very easily. Also, shape the hairs back into place, and then lay over the edge. Laying over the sides, makes sure that air gets around them easily. Now one thing that a lot of people forget is their brush container so wash your brush container with soap and water. Don't forget to dry your container because anything wet can harbor bacteria.


Once you've washed all of your makeup brushes, I like to dry the brushes again top to bottom, and put them in the container upright.

You're thinking “Upright, Sonia? What do you mean? I didn't think we could dry our brushes up right.” Well, thanks to capillary action that is exactly what we're doing. What capillary action is, is the ability to draw moisture up from the bottom, defying gravity, and that's what happens when you do your brushes this way. So make sure that they're super dry as dry as you can get them with a towel and then sit them up right.

Now the other thing is you want to make sure that there's enough space in between the brushes, so that they get plenty of air. The other thing is to be sure that you shape the brushes while they're still damp and then put them upright. And the reason is if you shape them while they're upright they're going to dry beautifully, almost like they're brand new. This is the one thing that I see a lot of people making mistakes with their makeup brushes is not shaping them before they dry them.


Now this is important, synthetic makeup brushes tend to need a little extra dry time. So I like to dry my thicker synthetics on a towel and get them as dry as possible before I put them in the container. Synthetic makeup brushes tend to harbor wetness a lot longer, which can result in bacteria growing because remember anything wet can harbor bacteria. So we're going to leave the brush lid open while they dry.

Your makeup brushes should be dry within an hour and then close the lid, and that's it.


Leave a comment

Please note, comments must be approved before they are published

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.