The 5 Best Tips for Washing Your Makeup Brushes

Tools and materials:

• Pure castile soap
• Hotel/bar soap
• Makeup wipes
• Disinfectant wipes or alcohol
• Towel

1. Cleaning loose makeup brushes

Wash your brushes with pure-castile liquid soap.

This is a really soft and gentle soap that will clean and disinfect your brushes.

This is good for powder brushes, or other brushes that aren’t very hard to clean.

This won’t work for brushes with rough stains like foundation, creams, and contours. 

2. Cleaning thick makeup brushes

For brushes with thick makeup adhered to them, I use hotel soap as it’s very effective at getting everything off.

Hotel soap usually doesn’t smell very nice so I will give my brushes one final clean with a good-smelling soap, like a pure-castile one.

If you don’t have hotel soap, any bar soap will do.

3. The best way to wash your brushes

Wet your brush and then apply the soap to your hand.

With the texture of your fingers, clean your brushes in the same motion that you would use the brushes in real life. This way you’ll respect the shape of the brush.

Don’t be too rough and don’t press too hard. You can buy mats to clean your brushes, but I don’t think they're necessary.

Rinse the brushes and press out any excess water. Make sure to reshape the brushes back to their original shape so they dry correctly.

If your brushes are messy and have hairs everywhere that won’t press back into shape, there are brush shapers you can buy. 

4. The best way to wash the handles

You not only need to clean the bristles, but you need to clean the handles too.

We often have makeup on our hands and we touch it all of the time, so it’s important to keep it clean.

I recommend using a makeup wipe to remove the makeup first and then using a disinfectant wipe or alcohol to clean and disinfect it.

Be careful with alcohol because if your brushes are too cheap, the material can begin to chip. Test it before you use it. 

5. The best way to dry your brushes

Lay your brushes on a flat surface to dry. Place them on the edge of the surface so there’s air all around the brush and it’s not pressing into the table. This allows you to maintain the shape of the brush.

This will also prevent the brush from holding any humidity that can cause bacteria to grow. Leave them overnight to dry.

Make sure they’re completely dry in the morning before using. 

Makeup brush washing tips

Now you know how to clean your makeup brushes correctly! Washing makeup brushes correctly doesn’t take a lot, and it should be a regular step in your makeup routine.

Let me know how you like to clean your brushes in the comments below.

Next, check out my Super Simple Hack for Storing Your Belts.