Clean Your Makeup Brushes

When it gets close to Christmas I start cleaning and organising EVERYTHING. As a kid I would spend weeks going through all my old toys, putting them into charity bags and making room for all the new ones that Santa was going to bring me. I think that has probably stuck with me for my whole life, and now with a few weeks to go I’m starting to get rid of old clothes, bags and shoes. This year I’ve asked Santa for some more Real Technique makeup brushes, the blush brush and the core collection to be precise – which I am veryyyy excited about. But this means that I need to clean my current brushes, find a new (bigger) home for them and sadly throw away my over loved ones.

I’ve been hunting for a new makeup brush holder for weeks – it’s a very serious commitment. And I’ve found lots of pretty ones and lots of big ones, but sadly none nice enough and big enough for me to buy. I chatted to my boyfriend and asked him if he would be able to make me one (he works in the metal industry), eventually he agreed, I’ve sent him measurements for 3 different size pots and I’m waiting patiently for them to be finished.

Now on to cleaning! I HATE cleaning my brushes. It makes me so nervous that I’m going to destroy them, so I’m constantly trying to find a new, convenient way to clean them that doesn’t mean I totally wreck the glue. And I think I’ve finally found it. (I lost a few bristles from my 17 bronzer brush, but let’s not mention that).

I was looking through Amazon and saw some Strictly Professional Cosmetic Brush Cleaner and decided to give it a go. It was only a couple of pound plus postage and thought that I may as well give it a go. It’s like an oily solution, that you stand your brushes in for 15 minutes then rinse with warm water. I decided to just use a normal bowl and used about a third of the bottle, but this cleaned all of my brushes. After the 15 minutes the liquid had all been absorbed into the brushes. Then when you rinse it the makeup just comes straight off, however the oil needs a few rinses before it’s completely gone. But it works  SO well. I rinsed them through once, left them out for a little while on a piece of tissue, then rinsed through again. The oil left them clean and really soft, they also smell lovely. However my bathroom sink was a little more difficult to clean after all that foundation!

How do you clean your makeup brushes?