Oh, boy. Hmm… A month? Granted, I wasn’t doing a lot of crazy, complicated looks with brights at the time, just simple washes of neutral color, so I could get away with using eye brushes that weren’t exactly pristine, LOL!
But yeah, it was about a month, give or take a week or two. I did swipe them and wipe them down with paper towels to remove as much of whatever former product was on them, but mainly I just took into account that they still had leftover color on them in whatever look I was doing.
Eventually, though, when I completely ran out of even arguably, questionably, remotely clean brushes and was forced to wash them all, girl, it took FOREVER. I was in that bathroom washing brushes for what felt like years! I think I finished an audiobook, haha.
How about you? What’s the longest you’ve gone without washing your makeup brushes?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Yeah, I tend to leave it too long and then have to do a mammoth wash. It takes so much longer than I like which is why I keep putting it off! Separately, I have some of those spray brush cleaners. They seem to be alcohol based. Wouldn’t alcohol dry out natural bristles? I always wonder than.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve always thought too, which is why I avoid them. I think the alcohol might be in there to speed up the drying process and to disinfect? I always use Dr. Bronner’s soap. Cheap, effective and I can find it at the drugstore.
yup. Dr. Bronner’s is good as is Savon de Marseille or Beauty Blender cleanser but that it a bit overpriced for a soap!
Brushes that have been used get washed every week without fail. Since I only use a brush once or twice before tossing it in the “to wash” bin, brushes can add up fast if I don’t stay on top of it. I really don’t know why some people make such a production about washing brushes. If you wash them regularly, it’s no big deal.
I would say a month as well BUT I have a crap ton of brushes. I mean a crap ton… an unreasonable amount of brushes so I’m able to rotate them. I own a ton of different brands but most of my brushes are hakuhodo, and zoeva, and for synthetics I love the real techniques, Illamasqua and It Cosmetic brushes. When my family comes over to my house and they see all my brushes they always comment “seriously?” and I have to reply “uhm yeah because I don’t wash them every week.” Come on now I can’t be the only one. Right?
LOL, you’re not! Aren’t the It Cosmetics face brushes so good? I don’t really use the eye ones (they’re big for my limited lid space) but the face brushes are my jam. I have a couple big, fluffy pointed face brushes which I love to bits. I use them all the time for powder, blush, bronzer and to blend.
I wash my brushes once a week
It’s been a while. I usually wipe mine on a damp paper towel or tissue immediately after using, so that removes most of the powdered products. The instructions I got when I bought my brushes in Japan were that you wipe them after every use, but only clean them once in a while.
The only brushes I clean almost every time I use them are synthetic ones that I use with foundations or cream products.
I still haven’t found a brush cleaner that I really like. One that doesn’t leave makeup behind, doesn’t leave a film or scent behind and one that doesn’t strip my brushes either. It seems if it’s a non-stripping cleanser then there’s always a makeup residue, but if it cleans off the makeup it strips my brushes and makes them dry.
Lately, I’ve just been using my fingers for the most part, because I hate cleaning brushes. I find it extremely boring, even if I only have one or two brushes to do.
Have you ever tried using Dr. Bronner’s Soap? I use it to clean my brushes (stumbled onto it as a brush cleaner by accident), and it’s so good!
Girl, probably a few months, but that’s partially because I have a lot of backup brushes. However, I’ve streamlined to only the brushes I like best and I wash them almost every week.
I need to streamline desperately… But then I’d be washing brushes every day, haha!
What brushes are the ones you like best?
For my foundation, I use a brush by Urban Decay, their optical blurring brush. For loose powder I use this old Arbonne brush that’s quite small compared to a normal powder brush, and I use an old Arbonne fan brush for highlighter. I love my Real Techniques blush brush.
My eyeshadow brushes are a mixed group. I have several different Urban Decay brushes I use, one pencil brush from a Sonia Kashuk set, and two MAC 217 brushes. I have several liner brushes, but I usually use liquid or pencil liner, so those don’t get used a ton.
I clean brushes that I used cream products with immediately with ELF brush cleaner. But for all my powder products, I try and clean the synthetics every few weeks, but I only clean the natural hair brushes once a month – I don’t want to dry them out.
Side note/question – where did you get that adorable blue swivel container for your brushes??
Hi Sarah,
I bought it a while back from HomeGoods (here’s the post). The stock there changes weekly, but I’ve seen it in other colors there a few times since I bought it.
OMG. I feel so lame. I need to wash mine but haven’t done it in awhile, I can’t even remember! I have a ton of blush brushes I keep using though, I’ll probably have 30 brushes to wash by the time I get to it. What I’d really like to know is where can I get a carousel like the one in the picture above to hold some brushes?
Probably a month as well. I have a good amount though where I don’t have to use any dirty ones again. I dread washing them though lol. I love your brush holder! I need one like that.
BRB, gonna go wash my brushes…but seriously, thanks for the reminder! It’s been too long. Like I’m not telling you how long because it’s embarrassing.
These days I wash them every week. But before I did it less. Maybe once every two or three weeks.
The short answer is: some brushes always get cleaned every day, some have probably gone more than a month between real washes.
I always clean my eye and lip brushes immediately, and any brushes I’ve used with cream blush, contour, or highlight. I’m a real nut about it. I wipe them with a microfiber cloth, then sanitize the synthetic ones in an artists’ jar (a sponge at the bottom of a small jar) with an enough rubbing alcohol in it to come just above the surface of the sponge. The natural bristle ones I spray with a non-alcohol spray like one I have from Japonesque, or Sephora Dry Clean Instant Dry Brush Cleaner Spray, and wipe with the microfiber cloth again. I work it into my routine — I apply eye shadow, clean up, apply undereye and face primers or my BB cream, then clean eyeshadow brushes while those products are setting.
I mostly apply foundation, BB creams, and concealers with my fingers. I don’t use my Beauty Blender that often because I feel compelled to clean it immediately, and it takes time. The brushes I use some of the time to blend out the edges of foundation/concealer I wipe off on a wet washcloth or paper towel soaked with alcohol right away, and actually wash them when I can tell there’s some residue left behind. Synthetic concealer brushes get a dunking in the artists’ jar pretty regularly.
But, for face/cheek brushes, I wipe them really thoroughly on a microfiber cloth immediately after use. If there’s obvious pigment left on the synthetic ones, they’ll get wiped with the paper towel with alcohol on it. So then I actually wash them when they seem to need it, which is about monthly. At that point I wash my natural-bristle eye brushes, too, and any synthetic eye or lip brushes that seem like they might benefit from it, in spite of their daily cleaning with alcohol. Washing fine natural-bristle brushes more often than they need it is not really good for them.
To get really stubborn pigment out of lip, eye, or concealer brushes, I resort to Parian Spirit. But that stuff is really strong, so I only use it if necessary and make sure it stays out of the ferrule.
I try to do every four days (because I only have four eyeliner brushes for gel liner and those get gross if you don’t wash them in between) and for all my other eye brushes I wipe them with Mac brush cleaner in between the actual water wash. My face brushes is every two weeks, mainly because I have duplicates and I rotate once I feel one is too dirty to comfortably use. I wish I had more brushes that way I could rotate them more, but they’re expensive!