I get a lot of questions about how to clean makeup brushes – specifically, “how do I deep clean my brushes?”
As a makeup artist, I’ve had to clean makeup brushes more often than the average person. Although quick-dry cleaning sprays are great during a job when you don’t have time to rinse and dry brushes in-between looks/clients, a deep clean is necessary after each client.
I clean my personal makeup brushes with a spray solution whenever I remember to and I deep clean makeup brushes once a month at the minimum. If I don’t, the brush stops applying makeup as well as it used to AND my skin starts acting up.
Luckily, the best method I’ve found is cheap, quick and easy (seriously it takes me like 10 minutes), beloved by makeup artists all over the world, and best of all, it’s totally customizable to your lifestyle in terms of ingredients.
Yep, you CAN deep clean your makeup brushes using gentle products with clean ingredients. I do it all the time.
Without further ado, my life-changing, super complex, CVS-receipt-style cleaning method below:
Cleaning Solution
- Liquid dish soap
- Olive oil
…And that’s it. No, I’m not joking.
Take whatever liquid you use to wash your dishes – I typically use Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day or castille soap – and squeeze 2-3 tablespoons into small bowl or plate. Add 3 drops of olive oil. Do not go overboard with the oil (in fact, sometimes I skip it altogether) or else it could leave a residue on your brushes.
Together, the soap will kill bacteria and the olive oil will keep your brushes from drying out.
The Cleaning Process
Turn on your faucet, wet the brush you want to clean, and lightly dip it in the soap/oil mixture. Don’t go overboard with saturating the brush – you can always add more. You’ll know if you’ve got enough soap on it when you can swirl the wet brush against the palm of your hand and see it lather up.
Swirl the soapy brush against your palm and massage the brush hairs with your fingertips. Rinse while massaging the brush hairs until the water runs clear. If the brush still looks a little dirty, repeat – but keep in mind that some brushes will never return to a perfect bright white (or whatever color they originally were).
When you’re done washing, hold the brush upside down (the brush hairs should be pointing down towards the floor) and gently wring out the excess water by squeezing the brush hair downward. Do NOT do this with the brush upright; all the extra water being squeezed down the brush handle could ruin the glue in the ferrule and make your brushes shed or fall apart prematurely.
Repeat for all your brushes, laying them flat on a dish towel.
This next step is a total game-changer. Before I started doing this my brushes would take two full days to dry, and I ain’t got time for that nonsense.
Instead of just leaving your sopping wet brushes on the counter, gently swirl the wet brush against the dish towel to absorb the excess water. Reshape the brush bristles and then lay flat to dry overnight.
You will wake up with soft, shapely, and CLEAN brushes and wonder why you waited so long to do this in the first place.
