How to Clean Your Makeup Brushes - Beauty Secrets

By a girl who uses shampoo and vibes but knows she should be doing better.  Beauty Secrets.

Luxury Perfume & Clean Beauty – Shop Online

Let’s be real: cleaning your makeup brushes is right up there with flossing, deleting old screenshots, and checking your bank balance. We know we should be doing it. We know life would be better if we just stayed on top of it. But somehow, we go weeks (okay, months) dipping the same fluffy blending brush into bronzer like it hasn’t seen things.

Hi, it’s me. I’ve been “washing” my brushes with shampoo and a vague sense of responsibility since high school. Conditioner if I’m feeling fancy. And yes — I just found out my dad owns one of those little brush-spinning gadgets. Why? Unknown. Has he ever used it? Doubtful. Am I deeply offended? Slightly.

So, if you’re like me — casually spiralling while staring at your gross beauty blender — let’s walk through this together. This is your guide to cleaning your makeup brushes like an adult… but make it chill.

Look, I hate being the bearer of hygiene truth, but dirty brushes are kind of gross. Like, petri dish gross. They collect:

• Old makeup

• Skin oils

• Dead skin cells (yum)

• Bacteria (the breakout-causing kind)

• And literal dust (because they sit on your counter like furniture)

Using dirty brushes = clogged pores, patchy makeup, breakouts, and just bad vibes overall. Plus, your makeup literally won’t blend as well. So yes, washing them is annoying — but so is adult acne you gave yourself with a brush from 2021.

Okay, so technically, pros recommend cleaning your brushes once a week. That’s cute.

Realistically? If you can do it every two weeks, you’re winning. If it’s been so long that you don’t remember what colour the bristles were originally… go do it now. I’ll wait.  Beauty Secrets.

This one’s classic, cheap, and works just fine:

1. Rinse the brush under lukewarm water (don’t get the metal part wet if you can avoid it — it messes with the glue).

2. Drop a little gentle shampoo (baby shampoo or something sulphate-free is best) into your palm or a brush cleaning pad if you’re fancy.

3. Swirl the brush around. It’s kind of gross and satisfying.

4. Rinse. Repeat if needed. Conditioner after is optional, but it does make them soft and smugly fresh.

5. Squeeze out excess water, reshape the bristles, and lay them flat on a towel to dry — bristles hanging off the edge of a counter works great. Don’t stand them up while wet. Water = gravity = sad brush.

So apparently, these little gadgets exist where you attach your brush, dip it in soapy water, and it literally spins clean and dry in seconds like a tiny tornado of hygiene. And yes, even my dad owns one, for reasons we may never understand.

If you’re lazy, love gadgets, or just want to feel like you’re in a sci-fi beauty lab, these things are kind of amazing. Not essential, but definitely satisfying. (Bondi Basics girls who love clean beauty but hate mess? This might be your moment.)

If you’re using the same brush every day (hi, foundation brush), you can get a daily brush spray to disinfect and refresh between deep cleans. Just spray, swipe on a tissue, and let it dry. Not a full clean, but better than nothing.

• Don't soak the whole brush: That metal part (the ferrule — yes, it has a name) holds the glue that keeps the bristles together. Don’t drown it.

• Don’t use super hot water: It can damage the bristles.

• Don’t use harsh soap: Dish soap seems efficient until your brushes start feeling like hay.

• Clean sponges too: Your beauty blender? Yeah. It’s probably more bacteria than sponge right now. Use the same method — rinse, lather, squeeze. Or toss it in a mesh lingerie bag and throw it in the laundry (real tip, real clean).

Look, none of us want to spend Sunday night elbow-deep in foundation runoff. But clean brushes really do make your makeup look better, your skin behave, and your bathroom less cursed.

So yes, I’m still using shampoo and pretending it's fine. But maybe next week, I’ll finally order one of those spinning brush washers. Or borrow my dad’s. (He won’t notice.)

Either way, let this be your reminder: wash your brushes. Not because you’re supposed to — but because Future You deserves a flawless base and a breakout-free forehead.

Luxury Perfume & Clean Beauty – Shop Online