Hey guys! I am so sorry that I haven't written a blog post in a while! I have been terribly busy adjusting to my new surroundings ... and now that I finally am, I can finally start cracking down on some makeup tips! So yes, in case you were wondering ... I am still alive, and doing well!

Okay, so as the majority of us who have makeup, we may or may not like to use brushes to apply our makeup with. If you don't use makeup brushes, it might be a good investment -- Sephora sells some really nice makeup brushes, but don't even bother going to MAC. The brushes sold at MAC are horribly expensive and are not the greatest quality from what I hear. Eco Tools sells some fantastic brushes, which you can buy at your local Walmart for dirt cheap, and they are really good. I think I have one, but this was before they released their Bamboo handle line. Anyway! Brushes are your bread-and-butter for makeup application. You can go all-out and have 25 brushes, or have the minimalist 16 brushes -- the number of brushes you have in your own personal kit does not limit you to the looks you can achieve. Just make sure that when you go brush shopping to not stock up on flat shading brushes, like I did. I will be buying new makeup brushes soon, just so then my brushes are not all mix-matched...


Right, okay. So we've used our brushes for quite a while and we haven't really taken proper care of them. Oops! It happens to the best of us. Especially me, and I am a clean freak... But lately, I just have not been able to get around to cleaning my brushes. The weather isn't that great outside, I have nothing better to do than to sit here and blog and listen to my music, so I thought, hmm, let's clean my makeup brushes too! And what better way to restart blogging than blogging about my experience cleaning my brushes?

First off, I do want to acknowledge that, for those of you who watch my Youtube videos, that the way Michelle Phan cleans her brushes is still a perfectly logical way of cleaning your brushes, and is still effective in disinfecting and cleaning your brushes (for those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, click here). However, makeup artists in the industry have a completely different process than just dish detergent and olive oil. The process in cleaning brushes can be lengthy in time, but there are some neat tips if you're in a time-crunch situation.

Let's get started:

So these brushes are my own personal brushes. I can't even remember the last time I've cleaned them -- the one and only brush I'm really concerned about is my foundation brush. It is literally caked in cream foundation ... EW! The rest of my brushes all just have various pigment on them, which isn't a big panic at all.


The first step I'm going to do to clean these brushes is use 99% isopropyl alcohol to really give my brushes a nice soak. (The products I'm going to be mentioning in this post, by the way, are cheap and available at your local drug store!) By using a medium-sized cup, I'm going to pour a fair amount of the 99% alcohol into the cup and soak my brushes in the liquid. Try not to breathe in the fumes!! HA HA. Once I've given the brushes a good soak, I'm going to dry them (not completely!) with a paper towel ... or that's what I would typically do. But since I cannot find anymore paper towel I'm going to use a regular cotton towel, which I do not recommend.

This is my foundation brush -- there was still foundation coming out of the brush even during the disinfecting process!

Now that those are done in the 99% alcohol, I'm going let my brushes soak in 70% isopropyl alcohol for 5 minutes to disinfect the brushes completely. Don't you think that's strange that only 70% alcohol disinfects, but 99% doesn't?! Oh well, I'm not the scientist here, I'm just going with what I've been told... You can use a big cup for this, just so your brushes aren't falling all over the place.

Journey is the perfect band to listen to while cleaning your brushes... HA HA.

For my larger brushes, which is my Large Powder Brush and my two Bronzing Brush(es), I'm going to just shampoo & condition them. After cleaning my small(er) brushes, my supply on my alcohols are running low. The bronzing brushes will benefit greatly, especially, from the shampoo & conditioning as they kind of lost their softness.

I recommend shampooing and conditioning your brushes twice every month, unless they are real-hair brushes. Then once at the end of every week is mandatory.


When you have finished cleaning your brushes, rest them on a table with the bristles/hairs of the brushes over the ledge, so make sure you're putting them somewhere where they won't be bumped or knocked off. What this will do for your brushes is let them dry on their own terms, and reshape themselves. Depending on how wet your brushes are, leave them overnight to dry.

And there you have it! Beautiful, clean, and sparkling brushes.

A little FYI on your brushes:

• Your brushes can be the cause of breakouts on your skin. Brushes are most susceptible to carrying bacteria, dirt and oil from the air and from previous use, respectively.
• Your brushes should NOT be broken in when you buy them -- they should be perfect when purchased. If they're not, then take them back and get your refund, gurl!
• The best kind of brushes to buy are blue squirrel-hair brushes. They are luxurious and picks up/deposits color in a smooth and even fashion.

Labels: alcohol, cleaning makeup brushes, cleaning tutorial, how to clean makeup brushes, how to take care of your brushes, how to take care of your makeup brushes, howto, makeup artist, makeup tutorial