Reader Question: Tips for Cleaning Makeup Brushes

Brush cleaning is something every makeup fanatic (or makeup user, for that matter), has to know how to do. So since I got a question about how I clean my brushes on my Formspring page, I figure I might as well cross-post it to my blog, because, well, we all need to wash our brushes, don't we? :) I need to do some sort of actual brush-cleaning post with pictures one day, but for now, here's just the words with no pictures.

Q: How do you wash your makeup brushes? Thanks =D

In order to clean the brushes, you'll need a supply of water (I do this in my bathroom), some brush cleaner, and a bunch of paper towels (or a cloth towel), as well as a place to let your brushes air dry.

First, I wet the bristles of my brushes a bit, and then I apply a bit of brush cleaner to the bristles and sort of gently swirl the bristles around in the cleaner. If the brush is very dirty I also gently rub some cleaner into the bristles using my fingers. After that, I rinse the brush bristles to remove the cleaner and gunk, and then I very gently squeeze any excess water out of the bristles with my fingertips. Afterwards, I try to get my brush as dry as possible using the towel or paper towels. I usually do this by gently pressing the bristles against the towels, or by running the brush back and forth against the towels. It's important to try to get as much water out of the brushes before you leave them to air dry, so that the drying time is shorter. After I think I've gotten as much water out as I can, I leave them lying flat on a small towel in a well-ventilated place, and let them air dry. It usually takes about 2 days for the brushes to fully dry, although thick, synthetic brushes (e.g. like a synthetic kabuki) can take longer.

The entire process can be pretty laborious because you have to do it by hand, one brush at a time. Three very important tips I can give you for cleaning brushes are:

1. Use the right cleaner, not just any soap or detergent. You can get brush cleaner from most stores (I know MAC has one that's pretty good, and can be diluted with water when used to make it last longer), but if you don't use brush cleaner, it's OK too. The main thing is to make sure that whatever you're using isn't too harsh or drying on the bristles, especially if they are made of natural hair. If your bristles feel dry or scratchy after they have dried, you know the cleaner you've used is too harsh. I personally like to use my Biore makeup remover gel for washing my brushes, because it gets out all the gunk but doesn't dry the bristles out. Other alternatives to brush cleaner that are popular are baby shampoo, as well as Dr Bronner's Castille Soap. Some people also use handsoap, though once again I'd be careful to make sure that the handsoap you're using isn't too harsh on the bristles.

2. Be gentle. Be very, very gentle. Some brushes shed hair, or bleed dye when washed. That is normal, especially if it is the first couple of times you're washing the brush. Subsequently, hair should shed less, and dye bleeding should lessen also. However, you also want to be very gentle with your brushes when you wash and dry them, so you don't excerbate the shedding or bleeding.

3. When you wash your brushes, be very careful to only wet the bristles, and not the ferrule. The ferrule is the part which joins the bristles to the handle of the brush. Most brands just fix the ferrule with glue, which means that repeated wetting of the ferrule will eventually weaken the glue and cause your bristles to come loose. That's a scary thought, isn't it? So it's important to make sure that the ferrule doesn't get wet unnecessarily, and is thoroughly dried. I just make sure I wet the brush and stop before the ferrule, instead of drowning the entire head of the brush in water. And it's also important to get the brush as dry as possible before letting it air dry (hence the activity with the towels), and also, it's equally important that the brushes are left flat (as opposed to upright) to dry.

Well, those are my tips for brush cleaning, and I hope they help you!

Reader Question: Eyeliner for Asian/Partially Folded Eyes

When I put eyeliner on, when I hope my eyes the eyeliner disappears due to my weird eyelid/fold. Are there some other techniques or ways to make my eyes stand out?

(Now, I don't normally copy questions from my Formspring page over to my blog, but I thought this would be useful, as a lot of Asian eyes I come across seem to have this problem. Hope it helps someone!)

Welcome to the club! I know exactly what you mean, because that's what my eyes are like, too. Liner is fine on the lower lid, but not on the upper lid, because the upper lid is obscured by the flesh of the eyelid. It's actually quite common among Asians.

There are various ways you can make your eyes stand out, and generally, different people prefer different methods. If you still wish to use eyeliner, then the most common method to counter the "sleepy-looking" fold that obscures your lashline is to simply draw a thicker line. This ensures that even when your eyes are open, the liner doesn't disappear. A lot of girls I know do this, although I myself am not personally too keen on this for one reason: that if the lid is very heavy, then the line that you end up drawing can be really thick in order for the liner to show up even when your eyes are open. Another tip for eyeliner is to make the line thicker at the outer corner of your eye, and thinner towards the inner corners. This helps to leave some liner visible on the eye even when the lid is opened, without giving that "one fat line of eyelier" look. I guess whether thickening the eyeliner works for you or not would depend on how obscured your lashline is - if you don't have to draw a very thick line for it to be visible, this method would work for you. But if you're like me and the line needs to be a quarter of an inch thick before it's visible, then usually I would just skip lining the upper eye altogether.

If you skip lining the upper eye altogehter (as I often do), there are still other ways to bring out your eyes. For me, I find that lining the lower lashline really helps a lot, even if I don't line the upper lashline. And also mascara - this is a much overlooked tip, but curled lashes with a good mascara on really helps to make the eyes look bigger. Lastly, there is also eyeshadow to play around with to emphasize the eyes. Contouring your eyes with eyeshadow can subtly make them appear to have more dimension. I've actually done a series of posts on eyeshadow for various types of Asian eyes, although it's incomplete. I believe the first post is located here: http://musicalhouses.blogspot.com/2010/03/eyeshadow-tutorial-for-asian-eye-shapes.html

It can be pretty frustrating if liner doesn't seem to always work for you, but there's always other tools you can use. If you need examples of eye looks where the eye is brought out without the use of liner on the upper lid, feel free to look through my EOTDs on my blog - I don't think I've ever lined the upper eye in anyone of them, because lining the upper lid is so useless on my small puny obscured eye, LOL. But rest assured you're not the only one, and there are definitely still ways to make your eyes look good even if liner doesn't look good on your lids.

Ask me anything

Reader Question: do you know if storing nail polish in the fridge keeps it in better conditon?

(Normally I don't put my formspring answers up on my blog - instead they're usually up on my Twitter, Facebook, and of course my Formspring page, and I don't want to duplicate content too much. But I thought this question was interesting, so I just put it on my blog too, in case anyone else was wondering.)

I don't think it helps anything, because nail polish isn't like other cosmetics. Other cosmetics, especially creams or liquids, tend to go bad or go "off" after awhile because bacteria get into them and start multiplying there over time. This is why some people suggest putting some of your makeup in the fridge, because the cooler temperatures slow down bacterial activity (although it doesn't stop it complete, and it doesn't kill the bacteria inside). However, nail polish is different. The chemical composition of nail polish is such that it's a very unfriendly place for bacteria to live - in general, they just don't survive in the sea of chemicals found in our polish. So nail polish has very little bacteria compared to other cosmetics. So since there isn't much bacteria surviving in your nail polish, there really isn't any point putting it in the fridge, because nail polish doesn't go bad the way other cosmetics do. However, over long periods of time, the solvents in the polish will evaporate naturally, and the polish will thicken or dry up. This can be fixed by adding thinner to the polish. (A side note - it's thinner you want to add, NOT nail polish remover, which will mess up your polish!) I hope this helps you!

Ask me anything