Make Up Brushes. Look After Your Investment Like a Pro!

Make up brushes can be expensive. Really good make up brushes can be verrrrrrry expensive. But, great brushes really do make the difference when applying make up, especially foundation, powders (setting powder, bronzer etc) and eye shadow.

I’ve oohed and aahed over the softest, fluffiest powder brushes in store to later get them home and find that past the first couple of uses they only closely resemble what I was sold, and they no longer feel like a baby bunny against my face. FYI Baby bunny against face is totally the aim I’m going for, but I wouldn’t want a brush made out of baby bunny, obviously. And not just because it would likely be extremely expensive. I love bunnies. I used to have one called Fluffy.

Back to the brushes… I have recently found where I’ve been going wrong. And it’s how you take care of your brushes that makes the difference.

It’s not like I never took care of them before, I’d wash them with baby shampoo once a week (once a fortnight if I was feeling lazy…which is often). And that simply isn’t enough. When I bought my amazingly lovely award winning Bobbi Brown powder brush (for £47 yikes!) I upgraded the shampoo to Bobbi’s conditioning brush cleanser (£10.50). But although this is more effective at removing product from the brush, the end result was pretty much the same. i.e  lovely for the first use and then clogged up and rough on my skin until the next wash (which could actually be THREE weeks if I’m feeling very lazy). Just. Not. Good. Enough.

So, I got to thinking “What do the girls at the department stores do?”. And my answer came from a very lovely lady at the Estée Lauder counter in boots, Brighton. She sprays cleansing solution on the brushes after every single use. You then swirl (or wipe for foundation brushes) on tissue until there’s no trace of product left. This takes a small amount of time (around 30 seconds) and means that the next time you use the brush it feels and works as good as new! You still need to wash it with brush shampoo every week/fortnight/month (delete according to your laziness) but in between washes the brush will work as intended. She sold me their own brand product which was £11 for 235mls. It’s big so is lasting well! It also sanitises brushes which means you won’t transfer bacteria in-between washes. Good bye unnecessary extra spots!

Let me know if you have any other tips for keeping brushes in tip-top shape.

And if you wash your make up brushes once a day and therefore don’t have this problem, you deserve a medal (and should probably get out more).

You can buy Estée Lauder’s Makeup Brush Cleaner here.