If you love your skin as much as you claim to, you wouldn’t take lightly the issue of cleaning your makeup tools. Makeup tools are a great harbor for bacteria. So, you should make an appointment with your calendar and schedule some time for cleaning your makeup brushes.

Makeup tools are very simple but the harm they can do to your face if not taken care off is beyond recovery. To reduce chances of you damaging skin, I have created a guide to help you clean up your makeup brushes. Remember there are right ways and wrong ways to clean up your brushes. So, it is good if you read the guide till the end.

How often should you clean your makeup brushes

If you have read my guide all about concealer brushes, you will realize that I talked about owning multiple makeup brushes each for different purpose. You will also realize that I talked about how using dirty brushes can result into very stubborn skin breakouts.

To prevent this from happening to your face, you should clean your brushes. Although there is no right answer as to how often you should clean your concealer brushes, the right answer from dermatologists is often. And, this also depends on your how many brushes and how often you use them.

So, if you have multiple brushes and you apply makeup too much, you can interchange them and clean them once you realize they are dirty enough.

But you cannot just clean them with water only an expect them to be clean. You should therefore continue reading the guide to learn what you need to clean your concealer brushes.

What do you use to clean concealer brushes?

Although it is possible and it is the common way to clean your concealer brush, using regular soap and soap to clean your concealer brush might not be always effective when it comes to cleaning brushes used for waterproof concealers.

Since you might not know if water and soap really worked efficiently, you should use cleanser.

If you don’t have cleansers used for concealer brushes, you can use a normal cleansers that you use for your face. Face cleanser are very gentle to your face they will therefore be gentle to your brushes.

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Cleansers also contain ingredients tough enough to deal with ingredients used in waterproof concealer.

Another product you can use to clean your concealer brushes is spirit. After cleaning your brushes with soap and water, you can spirits to kill all the bacteria that might found their way on your concealer brushes.

Kim Kardashian the celebrated entrepreneur says she usually soaks her brushes in Parian spirit and it has always worked for her. You can also normal methylated spirit.

If you cannot access a spirit, you can use a natural baby shampoo to clean your brushes. Natural baby shampoo is gentle on your skin which means it will be gentle on your brushes too.

Shampoo can be a little harsh to your brushes, to soften the bristles of your brushes, use a hair conditioner.

After cleaning your brushes with whichever product you see fit, you will need to dry your brushes. You can also use a dishwasher detergent to clean your brushes.

In most cases, if you don’t have a makeup dryer for this reason, you should air-dry your concealer brushes. Since the brushes might pick some bacteria from the atmosphere, you should sterilize your brushes before storing them.

How to properly clean your concealer brushes?

Depending on how often you use your makeup brushes, how many brushes you own, and if you have the right products for cleaning your concealer brushes, should not be very hard.

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• Start by warming some water into a Luke warm state.
• Dip in the brushes and then use a synthetic soap on the brushes bristles.
• You can then scrub the brushes gently to remove all the products from the brushes.
• Since brushes carry a lot of product, you should go for double or triple wash your brushes until all the products is off the brushes.
• If you are using a shampoo you should pair it with olive oil to protect the bristles from drying up too much.
• After cleansing the brushes, you should then condition your brushes with a gentle conditioner.
• Rinse the brushes in Luke warm water about three times to ensure no products remain in the brushes.
• Once the brushes are clearly clean, it is time to dry them.
• Normally, people air dry their brushes under direct sunlight. This might not be effective considering there is bacteria all over the atmosphere.

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• Since the brushes are moist, they might pick up some bacteria and retain them after they are dry. To prevent this from happening, you should take clean dry soft fiber cloth an layer in the surface before placing the brushes.
• You should also cover your brushes with another soft and light cloth to prevent any bacteria from finding their way to your brushes. The brushes might take longer to dry up. That is the reason you are advised to have multiple brushes for different purposes.
• Once the brushes are dry and ready to be stored, you should sanitize them using a sanitizer or methylated spirit.
• Do not store the brushes in an open space open to direct sunlight. Rather, store them in an enclosed space at a room temperature.
• If you can find a way to access a makeup brush dryer, it would take you a very short time and all the struggles of having to use sanitizers.

Although cleaning might seem so straightforward, there are a few mistakes that if done when cleaning my makeup brushes might cost you some dollars buying new brushes.

Possible mistakes when cleaning makeup brushes

1.Not washing your makeup brushes often enough

One mistake you can do to your brushes is not cleaning to them often enough. According to Booby brown a renown award winning beauty author, you should clean your brushes at least twice a week if you use them everyday. As for the eye brushes, you can wash them twice a month.

Not washing them might result you to having skin breakouts.

2.Treating all your brushes the same

By now you already know there are different types of brushes each coming with different features.

One mistake you can do is treat concealer brushes with synthetic fibers the same way you would treat concealer brushes with real hair. What I mean is that brushes with synthetic fibers will not be damaged if washed using dishwasher detergent. However, brushes with real hair will be damaged by dishwasher detergent. This brings me to the third mistake

3.Not using the right products

Before purchasing a makeup cleaning product, make sure you know your brushes well. You cannot use the same products to clean brushes with synthetic and real hair bristles.

4.The wrong the temperatures

Makeup brushes can be too delicate if treated wrongly. One mistake you can do is use too much hot water to clean your makeup brushes.

Warm the water you are using to clean your brushes in a Luke warm state and then soak your brushes. The soaking and the soap will ensure all the makeup products is off the brushes.

5.Soaking all the brushes together

Since all brushes don’t have the same texture and level of dirt, you shouldn’t soak the brushes together.

Brushes with real hair bristles have a high chances of shrinking if soaked in water and soap for the same length of time as brushes with synthetic bristles.

Conclusion

Using dirty concealer brushes can cause more harm than good for your skin. Dirty brushes harbor bacteria that might cause serious breakouts which might be irritating.

So, to prevent this from happening, you should wash your brushes often. You can use water and soap to clean your brushes however, this does not guarantee that all the bacteria that might be hiding inside your brushes. Instead you can use cleansers to clean your brushes.

Cleansers are not the only thing you can use to wash your concealer brushes, you can read the guide for other products.

After cleaning your brushes, you should let your Brushes dry. Another mistake people do is let their makeup brushes air dry. The atmosphere harbor a lot of bacteria that will attach themselves on the moist brushes.

You can use a makeup dryer to dry up your brushes. However, if you don’t have a dryer, you can put the brushes under direct sunlight to dry up faster then use an antiseptic after they are dry.

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References

1. Abd Rahman, R. Q., Abdul Rahman, N. Q., Samsudin, N. N., & Ahmad Za’im Faisal, D. N. D. Y. (2018). Speedy beauty dryer.
2. Fong, D., & Barn, P. Cleaning, Disinfection, and Sterilization at Personal Service Establishments. Skin, 1, 2.
3. De Almeida, M. T. G., de Almeida, B. G., Siqueira, J. P. Z., Soares, G. B., Morais, V. S., Yasuoka, F. M. M., & Ghiglieno, F. (2022). Ultraviolet-C Light-emitting Device Against Microorganisms in Beauty Salons. Pathogens and Immunity, 7(1), 49.