How to Clean Your Makeup Brushes
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So we’ve been told that we should be washing our brushes at least once a week. Although I’d love to say that I wash my brushes at least that often, the truth is that I probably wash my brushes once a month. I know, I know, that’s really bad for my skin but at least I wash my pillowcases once a week like I’m supposed to!
Makeup brushes can be expensive though, so what is the best way to wash brushes? This is exactly what I want to talk about! In my time as a makeup wearer and lover, I’ve used three main methods: dish soap method, electric cleaner method, and dry cleaner method.
Table of Contents
Dish Soap aka the Michelle Phan Method
This was the first method I ever learned when I was learning how to do my makeup and I still do it to this day because it’s so efficient both in cost and in cleaning! I learned this from Michelle Phan’s YouTube channel years ago when I was in college myself. It involves only dish soap and a little bit of olive oil.
The dish soap she recommended was an antibacterial dish soap. She recommended olive oil to keep bristles conditioned but I’ve also used different essential oils through the years depending on what skin benefits I’m looking for.
Here’s the dish soap makeup brush cleaning method.
Combine dish soap and oil in a dish.
Dip dirty brush in the mixture.
With water, lather the mixture through the bristles.
Rinse the brushes until no more of the lather remains.
Squeeze the water from the bristles.
Lay on its side or stand up with bristle side down to prevent the water from traveling into the barrel and wearing down the glue.
Using Electric Brush Cleaner
Using an electric makeup brush cleaner is my favorite way to clean brushes though. With the dish soap cleaning method, you’d have to wait usually overnight to use your brushes. With an electric makeup brush cleaner, the motor that spins the brushes will dry the brushes so can use it immediately after washing.
I have this one I bought from Amazon which I love but to be honest, you still have to attend to it. You have to hold it and you can only wash one brush at a time. If I was going to buy a new one, I’d probably purchase this one. Like the first electric cleaner I have, it uses an electric motor to spin the brushes to clean and dry the brushes. This new tool has a brush holder though so you don’t have to hold the brushes yourself. There’s also a cleaning disk at the bottom which would be more efficient at cleaning brushes.
Either way, electric brush cleaners are probably my preferred method of brush cleaning. Remember that you still have to wash the container you wash the brushes in so keep that in mind. While the dish soap method takes longer because you have to wait for it to dry, you don’t have to wash a separate tool in addition.
Using Dry Brush Cleaner
This cleaning technique is something I use quite often actually but I use it when I’m in the middle of doing my makeup. Dry cleaning a brush allows you to clean a brush in between applications, switching between two eyeshadow shades for example.
Basically, you have a spongy pad in a container that you swish your brush into and it will dislodge the pigment from the brush so you can dip into a new color without mixing the colors. You can buy premade ones like this one from Amazon. Amazon isn’t the only place you can buy this though. You can buy similar ones between $5 and $20.
I don’t think that’s necessary though. You can DIY this easily with a hair donut used for hair buns from the Dollar Store. It’s the same material and texture as the dry brush cleaners you can buy at Ulta or Amazon and it’ll cost you only around $1.
I’m guilty of not doing so but it’s important to wash your makeup brushes. Your skin will be much healthier and you’ll be able to apply your makeup easier if you have clean brushes.
