How To Clean Your Makeup Brushes

It is so important to clean your makeup brushes; not only can the colours of makeup mix (which is not cute when you’re using a beige eyeshadow after going in on a smokey eye the day before on the same brush!) but your makeup brushes harbour bacteria. From active ingredients to dead skin sells, not cleaning your brushes regularly can cause breakouts which are certainly not a good makeup base!

Thank you to Hassle.com for teaming up with me to create this post. They’re the leading UK platform for domestic cleaning services, also available in our lovely city of Manchester. If my blog post has inspired you for a spring clean and you’re keen on having a spotless home or you’re on the lookout for a trusted domestic cleaner – look no further. With an easy and convenient booking system, it’s never been easier to free up time for the things you love doing, all whilst your home is being taken care of.

There’s a ton of blog posts and tutorials out there about How To Clean Your Makeup Brushes, I know, but everyone does it differently, and today I’m going to show you how I do mine.

1. Go on a brush hunt. I like to get all my brushes gathered together at once and get them all cleaned and out of the way in one big go, ideally once a week (although I must admit it’s a hard New Year’s Resolution to stick to). Doing them all in one go means that although it takes longer at one time, its quicker than lots of little washes after every time you put your face on.
2. Run the warm tap and take one brush at a time. Rinse the brush fibres under the tap but make sure you don’t get any on the handle as this can often cause the glue to melt and the bristles of the brush to come loose from the handle. Make sure it is wet but not totally soaking.
3. Add some washing up liquid – or baby shampoo, or brush cleanser – all work just as well as each other but washing up liquid is the most hassle free for me, as it’s always next to my kitchen sink where I wash my brushes. You can either pop some of it on your hand, or if you prefer, on a plate or kitchen towel. There are specialist brush cleanser trays/pads you can get but really they all do the same thing!
4. Swirl the brush in direction of it’s bristles, or how you would usually use it on your face. For instance, for an eyeliner brush, make sure you wipe gently across your brush cleanser from left to right as you would on your eye. This helps to ensure the bristles to stay in place and not become disrupted; then rinse.
5. Lay out gently to dry; I like to pop mine on a towel on my windowsill and let them dry overnight on a Sunday ready for a monday morning. To help your brushes last longer, you can mould the damp bristles after their wash – gently squeeze the brush tip between your fingers to rinse out any excess water and then stroke the fibres back into their original place. This, as well as laying out horizontally, will help the brush stay in good condition – standing them upright (in a cup or brush folder for example) will again cause water to leak down into the brush glue and the bristles to come loose.

Hassle also provided this super helpful video onHow To Clean Your Makeup Brushes to help you with all your brush cleaning needs, enjoy!