Makeup Basics: Sanitizing Your Brushes

We all have a list of bad habits, but one that is the most common mistakes in beauty is using unclean brushes. It may seem unimportant to some but failing to clean and sanitize your instruments is about as bad as forgetting to clean and wash your face! Taking proper care of your brushes can help their performance, lengthen their lifetime and most importantly prevents the possibility of harboring any harmful bacteria from forming.

When your brushes pick up eye shadows, glitter, liners or pigments they also pick up and collect dirt, oils and bacteria. This affects any person with sensitive or acne prone skin the most. Buildup can be transferred straight to your skin and can cause breakouts. Unsanitized brushes can lead to the spread of viruses. Sharing lipstick or gloss straight from the tube or even using lip brushes can possibly spread cold sores, herpes or canker sores. Eye shadow and liner brushes can transfer pink eye of other viral infections. So if you share brushes with friends always clean them before and after!

Adding to the nasty side effects that unclean brushes share, it is also a filthy habit that can interfere with your artwork. Washing your brushes once a week keeps the bristles softer for a smoother application and allows you to grab the true pigment your wanting without any residue of a different color. If you have acne prone skin, use disposable sponges, wash your brushes and eye lash curlers daily. There are so many different and effective ways of washing your brushes.

I wash my brushes every 3 days. If I know I am about to do makeup for another person I always wash my kit brushes before then spray a diluted mix of water and rubbing alcohol just to make sure. I use disposable sponges while doing other's face makeup, the client and I both know they are santized so she will not have to worry about bacteria transfer to her or anyone else because after foundation is applied I throw it away. The makeup I apply to her skin is always santized before and I will post another article how to santize your makeup before applying it to your client.

I wash my brushes with house hold stuff EVERYONE has. I will explain how I wash mine so you can easily wash yours.

What You Need:

2 small towels, cheap shampoo, and dish washing soap

Before I wash my brushes, I lay out a towel to use for drying any excess water off. Then I lay out my other small towel that I folded in half in my sink, slightly out of the stream of water. Adding in a mixture of dishwashing soap and shampoo I add a little water and rub the towel until it gets a little foamy. Taking my bigger brushes first, I run each one under the water to get them damp. Then I brush them on the towel getting the bristles frothy and foamy all the way up the the very tip. Next I rinse them thoroughly as I watch all the colors and pigments come out. Once the water turns clear again I wipe them on the towel to remove the excess water. I lay them out seperately to avoid any mis-shaping and let them dry! It's simple and very effective. Any person trying to get into the makeup biz or even anyone trying to learn makeup needs to know and use this information.