How to | Deep Clean your Makeup Brushes

Cleaning your makeup brushes is essential. Firstly, makeup brushes often collect lots of bacteria (just think of the bacteria your concealer brush collects from one use on your blemishes!) and if they aren't washed this bacteria can cause spots. Secondly, makeup brushes tend to be pretty expensive and by cleaning them you will be ensuring that they last longer. When I first got into makeup and used really cheap brushes I never realised that it was important to clean your brushes, however, now I try to make sure I deep clean all of my brushes at least once a week to ensure they don't become breeding grounds for bacteria.

To deep clean your brushes people use different things, some like to use Brush Cleaners such as MAC Brush Cleaner (although I recommend this more for spot cleaning rather than a deep cleanse) while others use things such as a shampoo. I use Johnson's baby shampoo as baby shampoo is less harsh on your brushes than normal shampoo. Johnson's is also pretty cheap, costing £3.35 for a 500ml bottle at Boots. I really like this shampoo for my brushes as I find it cleans them thoroughly and there isn't excess product in the brushes.

My Dirty Makeup Brushes - ew

Firstly, collect together all the brushes you have used that week which are dirty and need to be deep cleaned. As you can see, mine are particularly dirty. Make sure you have your brushes and your chosen cleaning agent and go to a sink to wash your brushes.

The first thing you want to do is pour a bit of the product into your palm, you will need less for the eye brushes and slightly more for the bigger brushes (in particular, I find that foundation brushes seem to absorb the most product and seem to be hardest to thoroughly clean).

Next, take your dirty brush and swirl it into the shampoo gently using circular motions. Add a bit of water to create a lather.

After you've created a lather gently rinse the brush. Make sure when you do this that the brush is pointed downwards and that you don't allow the water to run into the ferule of the brush. This can lead the glue inside the ferule loosening and your brush head becoming loose.Repeat the above steps until the water runs clear and leave the brush to dry. Repeat for the rest of your brushes.

When putting your brush to dry, make sure you mould the brushes back into their original shape so that they don't loose their shape when they are dry (this is particularly important for angled/tapered face brushes). When leaving them to dry, don't leave them upright otherwise the water will run into the ferule.

Your brushes will now be clean and you can leave them to dry.

I hope this helped anyone who had queries about how to properly deep clean your brushes.