Show Your Makeup Brushes Some Love! Get the Most Life Out of Your Brushes with These Tips

You’re told repeatedly that cleaning makeup brushes is vitally important. It keeps them free of germs and helps them perform better.

Makeup brush care is given credit for ensuring they last longer. But, no one often asks if we should want our brushes to last longer.

After all, do you know how many germs, microbes, bacteria and other stuff inhabits your brushes - even when you wash them?

The answer: You don’t really want to know because it is not a pretty picture.

Suffice it to say that even those known for frequently cleaning makeup brushes will be able to easily fill multiple petri dishes with huge colonies of germs or microbes with a single brush.

The simple fact is that makeup brush care is important, but only for so long. After that, cleaning makeup brushes can’t keep them free of colonies of unwelcome…um, visitors!

Why Cleaning Makeup Brushes Only Works for So Long

So, basic makeup brush care is effective. Yet, it cannot protect your skin, makeup or brushes from contamination forever.

Generally, you will want to replace instead of cleaning makeup brushes after a short time. A month is often a good amount of time to use of any brush or applicator. After that, replace it!

What steps can you take to ensure that your brushes can remain in good shape while you are using them? We have several to offer.

Just keep in mind that the way you store makeup brushes also plays a role in their level of filthiness. Yes, that word is appropriate because some brushes can remain packed with everything from streptomycetes, bacterium, fungus and worse.

As an example, the cup of makeup brushes set on a shelf above the sink or toilet is exposed to tons of free-floating contaminants. They cling to the brushes and bristles, make their way to the base, and breed like crazy in the warmth and humidity.

Ugh!

So, learn the very best steps for makeup brush care and cleaning makeup brushes, but also keep in mind that you will be replacing them regularly if you want the best skin health and makeup applications.

Is Cleaning Makeup Brushes with Natural Products Effective?

What about makeup brush care that uses nothing more than olive oil and soap?

While a bath of two parts antibacterial soap to one part olive oil is a crazily simple solution to make, using it is not as effective as you might like.

You will have to dampen each brush, submerge the bristles in the solution and work it into a light lather before rinsing repeatedly to ensure it is all removed.

You then have to lay out the brushes on a towel and allow bristles to hang over the edge of a counter to ensure full air circulation.

Cleaning makeup brushes via this route takes a lot of time, may require repeated rinses and degrades the brushes over time. In other words, it doesn’t really work.

Are Machines Good for Optimal Makeup Brush Care?

Should you use products designed for makeup brush care? For example, we have seen systems like the StylePro Makeup-Up Brush Cleaner and Dryer kit, among others.

And while they are a good idea, these systems for cleaning makeup brushes are not the best solution for several reasons. The first being that they cannot promise that your brushes are actually germ free.

They use handle adapters that are attached to a little gadget that spins and swirls the brush rapidly in a cleansing solution. It then spins the brush to eliminate materials from the bristles.

Though cleansing and drying properly are key steps in makeup brush care, these gadgets are quite rough on the brushes, don’t travel easily or well, and just cannot get them deeply cleaned.

While better than olive oil and soap, they are still not a long-term solution.

What About Brush Shampoo?

There are many products designed to streamline makeup brush care and cleaning, and one is a “shampoo”  or specially formulated soap designed for brushes. They will work faster than homemade mixes, but with many of the same “downsides”.

They require manual scrubbing of the bristles, can take several cleanings to work properly, and require the brushes to be dried over a longer period of time.

They can break down the brushes because of the dampness, too.

Beyond Cleansing

Remember that you must also consider how you will store your makeup brushes to give them a cleaner environment or longer life.

That cup in the bathroom is not ideal, and it is often best to store them in a drier space such as a dressing table in the bedroom.

You’ll still need to clean them regularly.

And regular replacement is key. This is why one of the best ways to update a beauty regimen is to think about options for brush replacements. While you can find subscriptions like the MorphMe option, which is a service that introduces new product designs, a more reliable option would be the BEAUTIAC system.

A first in the beauty industry, it uses a set of hygienic brush bases that rely on easy to replace bristle heads.

Made entirely free of animal ingredients (i.e. cruelty free), they just pop off at the end of their safe lifecycle and are tossed into a recycle bin. They are entirely recyclable in traditional systems!

You then get the safest and cleanest brushes (that still need basic cleansing and drying), which are replaced before they develop any troubling residents (i.e. mold, bacteria, spores and who knows what else!).

With a No-Shed Technology, ergonomic design and featuring the most frequently used brushes (foundation, powder and blush) along with a sanitary, dye-free sponge, it streamlines makeup brush care.

If the idea of a regular schedule of reliable, high performing, cruelty free and vegan brushes that are fully recyclable and easy to use appeals to you, the BEAUTIAC solution is for you!