Cleaning Your Makeup Brushes The Natural Way

Even if you buy only the highest quality makeup, all-natural moisturizers and dermatologist-approved face scrubs, you could be making one mistake that is messing up your entire skincare routine.

Are you cleaning your makeup brushes regularly? If not, each time you apply makeup, you’re also applying a layer of bacteria and dead skin cells to your face.

The more you touch your face, the more oil and bacteria you put on your skin. Neither of these do good things to your skin.

Bacteria will only aggravate other skin conditions, like acne. You have bacteria to thank for all of those red, painful pimples. Adding more oil to the situation could also cause more blackheads, clogged pores and overall unhealthy skin.

Here’s the good news: There’s an incredibly simple way to avoid a lot of this discomfort. Just clean your makeup brushes!

Most experts recommend you clean your brushes at least once a month, if not more often. This also prolongs the life of your brushes, saving you money in the long term.

There are two simple ways you can clean your brushes – both using natural ingredients you probably already have at home.

For the first method, all you need is olive oil and a sponge. This is especially good for brushes used for liquids, like liners, lip glosses and lipsticks. Because olive oil is so moisturizing, it also conditions the bristles and makes your brushes easier to use.

To clean your brush with olive oil, simply dip the bristles in olive oil, and work the brush into a sponge. You’ll start to see caked-on makeup come off onto the sponge.

When your brush is clean, give it a quick rinse in lukewarm water and lie it out to dry.

You can also clean your brushes with an all-natural bar soap. Choose a simple, natural variety.

Get the bar of soap wet and gentle massages the bristles onto it. Again, you’ll start to see makeup residue come off the brush into the suds.

Then, you’ll just need to to rinse and dry your brush. Be careful not to completely submerge any of your brushes in water, as this could loosen up the glue and cause bristles to fall out.

Photo credit: Paul Delmont