How to Take Care of Brushes

Hello Everyone!! How's it going ? I hope everything is well and okay with you! Today I'll be talking about something that I believe is really, but really important when dealing with make up : properly clean and take care of brushes. Let's be honest, brushes can be quite of an investment - I don't personally own anything like that but, someone with hakuhodo's (which are hand made I believe) will want to make sure that their brushes look amazing and are properly washed and dried out. But I own a good number of them - and I still want more? like...-and I want to make sure that they last as long as I can. Specially eye brushes - no one wants out-of-shape blending brushes.
With all of this in mind I've been doing my own research and I finally found the perfect hack for this issue. I have to mention that there are some tutorials regarding this that are actually misleading - I'll explain why later. So beware of that.


There are two types of cleansing : either spot cleaning and deep cleaning. I'll be talking about deep cleaning since it is the one I tend to reach more, specially regarding foundation brushes. I think spot cleaning is a good option for eye brushes and powder/blush brushes since powders tend to not hold as much bacteria as a cream ( like concealer and foundation) would. I always cleanse my foundation/concealer brush after using it. It not, I'll place it inside the "cup of shame" until I do clean it. That's why I like to have spare foundation brushes. I also want to add that I get if some people will think about as excessive, but to me is something that need to be done.
Most of you won't realise but, having clean brushes can also help to prevent breakouts and other skin issues. Having residues of old foundation passing by out face isn't a really good idea - and this goes to beautyblenders and makeup sponges as well people. Maybe I am a bit of a germ-freak...but ever since I got this method I saw an improvement. 

It's not like we need to many items. I personally follow Michelle Phan's way of cleaning brushes, which is to me the best way of deep cleaning my brushes.Pretty much like her I start by wetting a little my brushes and rubbing them on soap and removing afterwards. The only difference is that I don't really add the olive oil and I usually use either sls free shampoo or a olive oil based soap to cleanse my brushes. So far they are still soft and super clean. The reason I don't add the oil is pretty much because it would be a pain to take the oiliness without using extra hot water - which is something we don't want to do in order to not damage the bristles. Other than that, I pretty do like her but with a another small difference. (there are nowadays proper soaps to cleanse your brushes, both DaVinci and Beautyblender have them and I believe there are way more brands who do it as well)

 The actual brush guards she recommended are quite expensive - around 5 Euro per pack. But eBay is a saviour as always and they actually have a really affordable version. I got 40 brush guards for 1,5 Euro if I'm not mistaken ( it was probably less but currency converse can change from time to time) and I have to say I have way more than what I need. Specially because I think I don't actually own 40 brushes (I won't count them, but I think it's actually close to that...). But yes, getting these was the best thing I could do. I usually wash my brushes and after removing the excess of water I place them inside of the guard and insert them inside of a cup with the bristles facing down. I've seen some people placing the brushes in towels completely flat...which I wouldn't recommend at all. First of all the water will probably find it's way into the glue that holds the bristles and eventually the brush will start to shed. I also believe that most brushes won't get their good shame if stored like that - an example of that would be my Blush Brush from Real Techniques. 
But things evolve - kind off like Pokemons -  and nowadays people don't have the need to swirl brushes on hands. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but personally cleansing foundation brushes can be quite of a pain...because of this brands started to launch accessories to deal with it. First it was Sigma's with their Brush Glove which was way too expensive. But it didn't too long for affordable options to appear - an example is this Brushegg which has been a life saviour. Cleaning Foundation brushes is no a longer a pain and doesn't take as much as it would. I've also noticed that my eyeshadow brushes don't end up stained from eyeshadow or anything like that. I'm thinking about getting a Cleansing Mat ( either from eBay or from Brush Tools ). But yes, for less than 2 Euro I got something that has been helping me a lot. 

And this is how my brushes look after drying out. On a hot day it takes 4 to 6 hours. During the cold, humid, winter times it takes at least 8 hours ( due to the weather). But as you can see..it's worth it. It doesn't matter if it is a Real Techniques or a Zoeva brush. In the end, they will look as new and totally ready to be used again.
I hope that this post will help anyone with cleaning their brushes and please feel free to leave any question you might have. All I want to do is to help you guys!
Thank you very much for reading. Take care and have a nice day!